Latest Articles

Helping America’s national parks survive climate change

Anyone who’s ever lived in a home with a leaky basement knows that during a rainstorm, preventing a flood is the first order of business. Too often, though, it’s easy to put off until later the investments necessary to protect your home from future storms that are sure to come. The same is true with […]

Pinko bastion spawns capitalist solution to solar financing

Berkeley is Fox News’ nightmare. The city’s political spectrum runs from center left to left of Lenin. Malcolm X not only has an elementary school named after him but his birthday is a public holiday. The best pizza in town comes from a workers’ collective (veggie only) located across the street from Alice Waters’ Chez […]

Gobs of green ideas for Mother’s Day

Look, Ma, no pesticides!iStock OK, it’s one thing to say Screw Earth Day, but there are some holidays you just don’t toy with. We know enough to leave Mother’s Day alone. You don’t have to pull this car over. In honor of the day, we hereby present great green gift ideas for ma. Not that […]

From Uranus to You’re Welcome

Fancy pants These little eco-friendly “soy shorts” are made from tofu by-products, allowing you to help save planet earth starting with Uranus. [vodpod id=Video.16091717&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26] (Click below to see the next item in this week’s Grist List—or view them all on a single page.)

Sierra Club parodies the worst song ever recorded about coal

Don’t ever accuse the Sierra Club of being bad sports. After the West Virginia Coal Association released a series of the worst cellphone ringtone songs about coal ever recorded–I mean, as in the worst coal songs ever recorded since Thomas Edison pioneered the first coal-fired plant and phonograph in the late 19th century–the Sierra Club’s […]

Cash for clunkers inventory clearance sale!

(photo credit Wen-YanKing via the Flickr Creative Commons license). The Cash for Clunkers Agreement is a short-term attempt to stimulate consumer spending on new cars, nothing more, nothing less. It’s a no-brainier from a political perspective because voters will support any program that will give them thousands of dollars to trade in a junker for […]

Vilsack’s USDA shakes things up

I know some are still reeling from the recent Obama administration announcement on biofuels and its implication that it remains a bit too much in thrall to the concerns of Big Ag. And Tom Vilsack’s continued pimping for Monsanto and other biotech companies seems both unsustainable and uninformed. But a slew of positive decisions have […]

Rep. Barton says the only way to stop a global pandemic is if everyone does nothing

“Don’t confuse my opposition to excessive regulation with a desire for inaction.  We don’t need an international treaty with rules and regulations that will handcuff the American economy or our ability to make our environment cleaner, safer and healthier.” – “Words that Work” from GOP messaging guru Frank Luntz, in his 2002 memo on talking […]

Green building in the West Bank

At the West Bank’s first green-building conference.Courtesy Eric Pallant Read more about Eric Pallant’s eco-explorations in the Middle East. Al Quds University in Abu Dis, Palestine, hosted the first Green Building conference in the West Bank this week. It wasn’t just students who showed up — there were suits, too. Forty-nine people attended, and the […]

After 15 days of lockdown, exhaustion sets in at Grist HQ

Wondering what food to serve, and how to confront the guy who always leaves the water running? Umbra advises.