Latest Articles

Who are the faces behind FACES of Coal?

Yet another pro-coal group has popped up to rally folks against climate action. The Federation for American Coal, Energy and Security — or FACES of Coal — joins a growing list of “grassroots” groups formed to support fossil fuels. The “faces” shown on the group’s website include a smiling flower vender, a child playing golf, […]

Take the environment out of sustainability, argues former Sierra Club chief

Adam WerbachAdam Werbach’s career is something of a lodestar for the trajectory of the 21st century American environmental movement. A student activist tutored at the knee of the Archdruid himself, the legendary David Brower, Werbach was elected the youngest president of the Sierra Club in 1996 at age 23.  Then business beckoned and he launched […]

Tim Halbur on sprawl, propaganda, and Obama’s approach to urban issues

This marks the first of a series of interviews with people working to make U.S. communities smarter, greener spaces. Got a suggestion for an interviewee? Send it our way or leave it in the comments section below. Tim Halbur’s career has included a stint as a journalist for NPR, co-producer of an environmental-justice driving tour […]

Washington state prisons pursue sustainable practices, green-collar job training

Daniel plants showy fleabane, a prairie flower native to the Pacific Northwest, at the Stafford Creek Corrections Center.Photo: Sarah van Schagen Rows and rows of small yellow cylinders fill the greenhouse where Daniel works steadily, beads of sweat forming on his round, bald head as he places tiny seeds in each container. He is planting […]

Hotter summers will pose public health challenges

In the dog days of August, you can be forgiven for not wanting to think about how it could get hotter, much hotter, in summers to come. Nevertheless, Climate Central, a nonprofit focused on communicating climate science, released a study today forecasting what summers might look like in 21 American cities in 2050. Climate Central’s […]

Global warming set to intensify August heat, Climate Central study finds

Climate Central’s analysis found that New York City will see a three-fold increase in the number of 90-degree-plus days in August by midcentury.Photo illustration by Tom Twigg / Grist By some measures, the Chicago and New York of tomorrow are likely to be hotter than the Atlanta of today — at least in August. Climate […]

NRDC Action Fund goes on offense against opponents of climate action

The Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund is bashing representatives who voted against the House climate bill as “villains” and lauding reps who voted for it as “heroes” in a new campaign. With TV and newspaper ads and a website, the campaign is aimed at states whose senators are on the fence about passing a […]

Seattle voters toss disposable bag fee

Image: Tom Twigg/GristIn the end, elections always come down to numbers. In the case of Seattle’s Aug. 18 primary — a vote that would decide whether the city would adopt a 20-cent fee for paper and plastic bags at local stores — the most important number turned out to be not the 20 cents nor […]

Houston’s “Energy Citizen” rally was just a glorified company picnic

Sarah McDonald at the scene.Yesterday the Public Citizen Texas team drove down to Houston to crash the American Petroleum Institute’s “Energy Citizen” event. Billed as a “grassroots” rally against the cap-and-trade bill currently before Congress, this event was nothing more than a company picnic. About 2,500 energy employees were brought by charter bus to the […]

Neighborhood stores: An overlooked strategy for fighting global warming

Our new neighborhood fresh food market.What I find most striking about my mother-in-law’s memories of the neighborhood where I live, and where she spent her childhood in the 1940s, is how many businesses our little residential section of town once boasted. Back then, there was a grocery store, hardware store, barber shop, two drugstores, a […]