Latest Articles

Pro sports are going greener, and that means the rest of us are too

The Seattle Sounders don’t just have crazy fans. Their facilities have a 57.6 percent landfill diversion rate.Photo: Mike HPro sports may not seem like a natural ally for environmentalists. Players fly from Boston to Los Angeles and back for a single game. Leagues and teams convince cities to build expensive and often unneeded new facilities […]

Solar gardens to bring small-d democratic solar power to Colorado

Colorado is the first U.S. state to follow in Canada’s footsteps democratizing solar power.This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. Want to go solar but you have a shady roof? You rent? You don’t have $40,000? Last year, Colorado passed the first state […]

Me, heading to Germany to learn about distributed renewable energy

This week, I’m going to be traveling to Berlin under the gracious auspices of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, a German progressive nonprofit that does work on clean energy. Exciting! It’ll be my first time in Germany. Aside from saying the words “schnitzel” and “spätzle” as often as possible (schnitzel! spätzle!), I’m going to be attending […]

Big Ag demands right to pollute California’s Central Valley

A Central Valley field.Photo: calwestThe Los Angeles Times details a brewing skirmish over agricultural runoff being fought in California’s Central Valley. At issue are proposed regulations that would for the first time force farmers to address fertilizer and pesticide runoff from their fields. A group of environmental organizations is pushing for the regulations, as the […]

Climate change kills our buzz, and vice versa

Grist’s offices are in Seattle, so we take this one really seriously: Climate change is threatening Costa Rica’s coffee crops. Coffee’s a fussy little plant, and it can’t handle extreme temperatures, so yields are going way down as temperature inches up. And if you think that’s a buzzkill, try this: An independent study by a […]

FedEx’s Republican CEO wants you to buy an electric car [VIDEO]

Clean energy: not a partisan issue, says FedEx's CEO. That's why he commissioned this slick little promo, which sums up everything that's wrong with our current transportation infrastructure but stops just short of mentioning peak oil. That's OK, because the facts speak for themselves: The U.S. uses a quarter of the world's oil. Seventy percent […]

The rallying anthem for the new green movement: Let’s all unf*ck it up!

Okay, maybe we're a little late on this one, but seriously: If you saw it already and you don't want to see it again, GET OUT because it is amazing. Everyone else, take a listen — NOT AT WORK, it is chock-full of swears. Clap your hands! Sing along! Help unf*ck it up! I'm going […]

Hundreds ride to support Brooklyn bike lane [VIDEO]

Well, if supporters of the Prospect Park West bike lane in Brooklyn are a bunch of terrorists (as some bike-lane opponents might have it), they are very effectively disguised as cute little kids and their parents. Streetfilms has the evidence. Yesterday, hundreds of bike lane supporters showed up to ride the controversial lane, which has […]

Shark fin soup and sautéed kitten: the cultural politics of cuisine

Enjoy your dinner meow.Kitten photo: Art SiegelWhat garnishes a kitten best? One of the corners in the long-standing battles between cultural relativists and absolutists is the question of food consumption, or what the Princeton sociologist Michaela DeSoucey speaks of as “gullet politics.” Sometimes it is the smallest moments that serve to clarify debates that elsewhere […]

Ball o’ confusion: Ask Umbra on non-toxic exercise balls

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, I want to buy a stability ball and some purport to be PVC-free and made of non-toxic vinyl. Is there such a thing? RoseNew York City If that ball is vinyl, this scene isn’t as healthy as it looks.Photo: Adria RichardsA. Dearest Rose, I give you snaps […]