Latest Articles
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Me, on Grit.tv, talking about Obama’s drilling plan
Yesterday I went on Grit.tv with Laura Flanders to discuss Obama’s new drilling plan. Watching it now, I think the main lesson is that I desperately need more sleep, or at least a professional make-up artist to hide the bags under my eyes. Here it is: One quick follow-up note: I think my focus on […]
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Louisiana environmental racism case gets hearing from Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
For the first time in history, an international human rights body has agreed to review a case involving allegations of environmental racism in the United States. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) will hear a complaint filed by the New Orleans-based Advocates for Environmental Human Rights (AEHR) on behalf of the people of Mossville, […]
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Obama was against offshore drilling before he was for it
While blogger Adam Bink is correct to point out that then-candidate Obama pivoted on offshore drilling in the final months of the presidential campaign, he misses a few important points.
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A view into the U.S. diet
The above chart, created by the USDA, compares the food consumed by the average U.S. citizen (using “loss-adjusted food availability” data as a proxy for consumption) to Federal dietary recommendations. In other words, what Americans eat vs. what the federal government thinks we should be eating. According to this analysis, we eat something like 30 […]
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Ask Umbra on Babeland’s boinking for bucks
Birds do it. Bees do it. You know what I’m buzzing about. And as long as you’re doing it, why not do it for Grist? For the entire month of April, Babeland will be donating 20 percent of sales of all their eco-friendly sex toys to Grist. You might remember this video about breaking up […]
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Ask Umbra’s pearls of wisdom on spring cleaning
Dearest readers, Ah, spring is on the calendar and in the air. Birds are singing, bees are buzzing, flowers are making me sneeze—or perhaps it’s this dust that’s been building up all winter. Time for the annual washing, scrubbing, wiping, sweeping, and general expunging of stuff known as spring cleaning. I scoured the archives for […]
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How much renewable juice does it take to power an Apple iPad?
With Apple fans’ fingers itching for the newest glossy touchscreen machine to hit the market this Saturday — the legendary iPad — it only makes sense to ask how the latest gee-whiz gizmo will impact the environment. Even with ten to twelve hours of battery time, they’ll have to recharge the wunder gadget sometime. So […]
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McDonald’s responds to April Fools’ story (via Twitter)
It looks like McDonald’s has a Big Mac–sized sense of humor. The official McDonald’s Twitter account responded to readers’ questions about our April Fools’ Day report saying that McDonald’s is scrapping a composting plan because its food won’t decompose. While some people didn’t realize it was fake news, McDonald’s did, and responded to a tweet […]
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Obama’s mountaintop-removal crackdown could mean more than offshore drilling
Offshore drilling, auto-efficiency standards, water-heater regs, green jobs for strippers … there’s a ton going on this week. But today’s big news is a lot brighter than yesterday’s offshore drilling hubbub: the Obama administration announced sweeping new regulations for mountaintop removal, the coal-mining method that tends to (a) remove mountaintops, (b) fill mountain valleys with […]
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The Climate Post: Read this. Read now. Pay nothing.
First things first: The Obama administration today finalized greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and light trucks first proposed last May. The practical upshot of the rules is a roughly 40 percent rise in fuel economy, to 35.5 miles per gallon, by 2016. The government said the measures would save owners about $3,000 in fuel […]
