Latest Articles
-
![]()
![]()
We need birth control, not geoengineering
I’ve written about my choice not to have children. What’s all too easy to forget is that many women still don’t have any reasonable choice about their fertility. An estimated 200 million women around the world don’t have access to family-planning tools. If they did, 52 million unwanted pregnancies could be averted every year, according […]
-
Abandoning Congress is not a winning strategy for climate activists
Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. Senators drafting comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation are negotiating with polluters, and talking about combining a cap on carbon with public incentives for nuclear plants, “clean coal,” and offshore drilling. Should supporters of strong, progressive action to solve the climate crisis give up on Congress and work within the […]
-
![]()
![]()
A movement far larger than the Tea Party
As an antidote to news of the oil spill on the Great Barrier Reef, here’s Paul Hawken giving last May’s commencement address at Portland University. From the entrepreneur, author, and ideas guy: There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode […]
-
![]()
![]()
Sustainable urban farming ideas that think inside the box
Photo via .hello foto of FlickrIn my last Green State column, I wrote about Agriculture 2.0. The conference, held in Silicon Valley recently, brought together venture capitalists and sustainable ag startups in an effort to jump start a market for the regional distribution of fresh food. This week I take a closer look at some […]
-
![]()
![]()
What a D.C. private school can teach us about public-school lunches
Meal time at the Washington Jesuit Academy. Photo: Ed Brukse This is the third of three articles detailing how food made from scratch using local ingredients is served to students at the Washington Jesuit Academy in Northeast Washington, D.C. The first is here; the second here: Prior to hiring Fresh Start Catering a year ago to […]
-
![]()
![]()
One more blow to the ailing Great Barrier Reef
The Shen Neng 1 in a plume of heavy oil in Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.Australian Maritime Safety AuthorityUgh. Everything about this is bad: A Chinese freighter crashed into Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Saturday, running aground and spilling heavy fuel oil into the water. The ship is stuck, and while the flow of oil has […]
-
Filling our short-term fossil-fuel needs
Like many Americans, I battle with my waistline, watching the same twenty pounds come and go year after year. Eating everything from Tootsie Rolls to asparagus, at times the healthy fare wins over the junk food, but usually the other way around. No food is either good or bad, because consumption isn’t measured against a […]
-
![]()
![]()
Time for Obama to embrace another GOP energy plan
By Jesse Jenkins and Yael Borofsky With President Obama’s announcement Wednesday that the administration would support expanded offshore oil and gas extraction, it’s now apparent that price pressures on oil make political pressures on politicians impossible to ignore and that some expansion of offshore drilling is inevitable. But despite Green backlash against the Obama administration’s […]
-
![]()
![]()
China’s global shopping spree: Is the world’s future resource map tilting East?
Cross-posted from TomDispatch. Think of it as a tale of two countries. When it comes to procuring the resources that make industrial societies run, China is now the shopaholic of planet Earth, while the United States is staying at home. Hard-hit by the global recession, the United States has experienced a marked decline in the […]
-
![]()
![]()
Pasta con sarde: the gateway drug for sardine obsession
Sardines at a market in Portugal. We’re wasting this magnificent resource on low-quality, mercury-laden farmed salmon? Not in Tom’s Kitchen! In Tom’s Kitchen, Grist’s food editor discusses some of the quick-and-easy things he gets up to in, well, his kitchen. Forgive him for the lame iPhone photography. —— A while ago, my colleague Jon Hiskes […]
