Latest Articles

Top scientists call for research on climate link to volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides and tsunamis

  Periods of exceptional climate change in Earth history are associated with a dynamic response from the solid Earth, involving enhanced levels of potentially hazardous geological and geomorphological activity. This response is expressed through the adjustment, modulation or triggering of a wide range of surface and crustal phenomena, including volcanic and seismic activity, submarine and sub-aerial landslides, […]

There are reasons to be pessimistic about climate legislation

Maggie Fox of Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection has an opinion piece in Politico in which she repeatedly laments the pessimism many have expressed that the Senate will finally take action on climate change legislation this year: Even before the Senate starts debating clean energy and climate legislation, the professional pessimists are saying it […]

Plan B – A Plan to Save Civilization

There is much that we do not know about the future. But one thing we do know is that business as usual, including our continuing failure to reverse the environmental trends undermining the world food economy, will not last for much longer. Massive change is inevitable. “The death of our civilization is no longer a […]

Retired military officers issue an order: improve school lunches!

Now that guys like these are demanding significantly more funding for school lunches, will Congress and the President listen? School lunch advocates have found a new — and certainly unexpected — ally in the battle for school lunch reform: retired military officers. A group called Mission: Readiness is holding an event today in Washington, DC […]

Time for the public to reinvest in food-system infrastructure

Want farmers market food to expand beynd niche status? We need to invest in infrastructure. Photo: Natalie Maynor, Flickr Creative CommonsWhen The New York Times invited me to participate in a “Room for Debate” forum on the infrastructure problem in agriculture, I wrote a 1400-word treatise (a Tolstoyan length in online-debate terms), before slashing it […]

Corn Ethanol Lobby's $ 2.5 million ad campaign

Click here to see my anti-propaganda propaganda film. For the full effect, turn your speakers on before playing it. I see it has already drawn a video response from a company that retrofits cars to run on E-85. I cringe at the thought of the hateful comments this video will elicit. Human nature can be […]

The “people’s climate conference” in Bolivia kicks off with ambitious aims

TIQUIPAYA, Bolivia — This small town outside Cochabamba, Bolivia — where cows roam freely and campesinos grow fruit, vegetables, and flowers to sell at the local market — is a far cry from Copenhagen.  But it’s the latest gathering place in the ongoing effort to shape an effective global response to climate change.  Here, Bolivian […]

The Best Way to Celebrate Earth Day

It’s that time of year again. Earth Day. The 2010 edition marks the 40th anniversary. If Congress wants to score some environmental and economic “green” for the planet, it should declare its intention to let the states address climate change. More than half the states have climate action plans to reduce carbon that would put […]

Walking on Two Legs

Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 19, 2010 At the end of my third day in Cochabamba and after the first day of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, it has become very clear that “walking on two legs” is very much what is taking place and will be taking place. […]

Grist editor talks childfree living and population on MSNBC [VIDEO]

Today I went on MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Show to talk about my recent post on being a GINK: green inclinations, no kids. (For the record, I have never said, “Kids are killing the planet,” and I would never want to drag any happy parent away from their adorable newborn in the hospital nursery.) [vodpod id=ExternalVideo.1012187&w=425&h=350&fv=launch%3D36651387%26width%3D400%26height%3D320] […]