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Grist founder honored with 2009 Heinz Award

What do you get for the best eco-boss ever? A stainless steel water bottle? A bike repair kit? A share of a local farm CSA? The Grist staff was thinking those would all be great gifts for beloved founder Chip Giller. Then we found out that the Heinz Family Foundation is honoring him with one […]

NY Times nails Clean Water Act crimes and (lack of) punishment

Many readers of the New York Times probably dropped their jaws in amazement at the lead story on Sunday: Seven-year-old Ryan Massey, of Prenter, West Virginia, smiled back with capped teeth, the enamel devoured by toxic tap water. His brother sported scabs and rashes, courtesy of the heavy metals–including lead, nickel–in their bath water. If […]

Thoughts on the legacy of Norman Borlaug

Norman Borlaug (Photo courtesy FAO)In the early 1940s, Mexico was a fraught region for U.S. geopolitical strategists. Not so long before — 1939 — a revolutionary government had nationalized the Mexican oil supply, dealing a sharp blow to U.S. oil interests, especially the Rockefeller family’s dominant Standard Oil. Meanwhile, as war raged in Europe, there […]

If JBS-Pilgrim’s deal goes through, four mega-firms will dominate the meat landscape

In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries. —— Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Brazilian firm JBS–the globe’s largest beef processor–was on the verge of buying U.S. chicken giant Pilgrim’s Pride. Although the companies have since remained mum on the tie-up, rumors of […]

A big breakthrough on green jobs

The New York State Senate and Assembly, too often a model of corruption and dysfunctionality, rose above petty politics last week to pass forward-thinking legislation on climate and energy, setting a precedent for bipartisanship and a sensible cap and trade system.  The State Senate passed the groundbreaking Green Job/Green New York Act, with strong support […]

Celebs to race Ford’s electric cars on Jay Leno’s new show

Jay Leno’s electric slide began long before the “Green Car Challenge.”Photo: Alan Light via FlickrOn his new show, which launched Monday night, Jay Leno will flaunt to the world his crush on electric cars. Leno’s show will feature the “Green Car Challenge,” wherein celeb guests race against each other in specially built Ford electric cars […]

Conservative French Government again proposes higher solar PV tariffs

For the second time within twelve months the French Government of conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy has proposed raising the feed-in tariff for solar PV in the coming year. The new provisions are contained in the specific regulations proposed in response to Minister for Energy and the Environment Jean-Louis Borloo’s announcement last November. The proposed regulations […]

Pollan says health-care reform will fail unless we change the way we eat

Michael PollanNPR’s Guy Raz: What if health care is overhauled and it doesn’t change the American diet in any way? Michael Pollan: We’ll go broke. If we don’t get a handle on these health care costs, the new system or the old system, we’ll go broke. And that’s why I think that really food is […]

The 2 billion ton test

Senators returned from their August recess with lots of ideas about how they would like to change the comprehensive clean energy and climate protection bill the House passed in June. This is a normal, and in many respects, healthy part of the legislative process. Some of these ideas, such as devoting more resources to building […]

When lobbyists cheer, the news can’t be good

As suspected, agribusiness is indeed turning cartwheels over the news that Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln is now chairman of the Senate Ag Committee. The public policy director for the retrograde American Farm Bureau told The Hill, “We couldn’t have handpicked a chairman better than this.” The giant sucking sound you’re hearing is agricultural reform rushing […]