Latest Articles

Green — who, me? Top 10 brownwashing Republicans

Greenwashing is out, brownwashing is in. These days, GOP politicians are scrambling to distance themselves from past environment-friendly statements, initiatives, and votes. (Thanks to Grist reader Gary Wockner for naming this trend.) Check out the top 10 offenders. And watch for a lot more Republicans to join the club as we head toward the 2012 […]

Contaminated compost? Toxins might be lurking in that bag you’re about to buy

Do you know what’s in your compost?The growing number of municipal and commercial composting operations has been one of the few bright spots in the environmental landscape, from San Francisco’s curbside composting service to this industrial-scale composting facility in Delaware. But Josh Harkinson in Mother Jones has harshed our green-tinged buzz. Thanks to fractured or […]

Making my first clean kilowatt

On May 25, my husband and I generated our first kilowatt of clean, solar electricity from the rooftop of our home here in West Virginia. It was AMAZING — as in, your-first-paper-mache-baking-soda-volcano amazing. As soon as we turned on the system, I kept running back outside to check out the new meter that measures our […]

Ken is leaving Barbie over her deforestation habit

Barbie's got a dangerous addiction to endangered Indonesian hardwood, and Ken isn't putting up with it anymore. Once he found out Mattel packaging uses wood from the fragile Indonesian rainforest, at least some of which is from evil conglomerate Asia Pulp & Paper, he was out of there, girl.  This video leans a little hard […]

When the Nile runs dry

A new scramble for Africa is under way. As global food prices rise and exporters reduce shipments of commodities, countries that rely on imported grain are panicking. Affluent countries like Saudi Arabia, South Korea, China and India have descended on fertile plains across the African continent, acquiring huge tracts of land to produce wheat, rice […]

The new New Urbanism: Fast, nimble, flexible, and tactical

Creating the new New Urbanism, on the street in Madison, with plenty of beer.Photo: Aurash KhawarzadLast week, the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) held its 19th annual meeting in Madison, Wisc. You may not have heard of the CNU, but you have almost certainly seen its influence in American development. The movement — which […]

Websites help you choose a walkable, low-commute home

Looking for an apartment involves a lot of guesswork — if you believe Craigslist, absolutely everything is "steps from shopping and transportation!" If you want to figure out how to maximize walkability and minimize commute, you have to actually schlep over there. Or, now, you could just hit the web. PadMapper integrates rental listings, Google maps, […]

California could ban Styrofoam

Takeout in California will never be the same. The state's legislature is halfway to forbidding restaurants and vendors from packing their products in Styrofoam containers: the California Senate's on board, and the House is supposed to vote on the measure by the end of the summer. The problem (besides that Styrofoam is an evil, atmosphere-killing […]

Blair Mountain: A new milestone in the climate justice movement?

Those making the March on Blair Mountain are part of a long history of activism.Photo: Cheshire Tongkat/March on Blair MountainTim DeChristopher is a climate activist and cofounder of Peaceful Uprising. He has been beatified as a saint in the Church of Earthalujah by the Reverend Billy and convicted as a felon by the United States […]

A three-step plan to solve the fossil fuel crisis

(from Fake Science) Brilliant in its simplicity. Even better: Since we may be approaching the carbon levels that killed the dinosaurs in the first place, we could just let the fossil fuels we burn kill the cloned dinos all by themselves.