Latest Articles

BrandWeek: ‘Sales drought’ for big water bottlers

Anyone who’s read Elizabeth Royte‘s Bottlemania will be cheered by this news, from BrandWeek: The market for bottled water may be drying up. Despite massive discounting, brands like Aquafina and Poland Spring are experiencing a sales drought unlike any the category has ever seen. After almost a decade of triple and then double-digit growth, sales […]

Could invasive species be a good thing?

Could invasive species’ bad reputation be undeserved? Bucking conventional wisdom, new research suggests that if exotic species aren’t predators of natives, competition by nonnative species can actually improve biodiversity. A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences notes that just three of New Zealand’s 2,065 native plants have gone extinct, despite […]

Russia’s Lake Baikal under threat from massive lead and zinc mine

One-fifth of the world’s freshwater could be under threat from heavy-metals pollution if a giant lead and zinc mine opens as planned upstream from Russia’s giant Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world. Mine advocates say leaving the world’s third-largest lead and zinc field unmined would be a waste of natural resources regardless of […]

Exposure to pesticides in utero linked to obesity, study says

Exposure to pesticides in utero can double a child’s chances of becoming obese, a new Spanish study has concluded. The study, published in the journal Acta Paediatrica, measured the level of the internationally banned (yet still freakishly persistent) pesticide hexachlorobenzene in the umbilical cords of over 400 children born on the Spanish island of Menorca. […]

Fast Food Nation author says the sustainable food movement should consider labor

Few Grist readers need an introduction to Eric Schlosser. His 2001 book, Fast Food Nation, helped galvanize interest in the politics and ecology of food production. Since that time, he’s used his increasingly high profile to illuminate one of the most shadowy crannies of the food system — working conditions in the vast monocropped fields […]

Eleven organic breakfast cereals get put to the spoon

The scene was surreal … I mean, cereal. I awoke from deadline-anxiety dreams one Sunday morning, and crept down to the kitchen at the farmhouse where I work. There I found a dozen people chomping breakfast cereal, scribbling down notes, and trading bon mots. Coincidentally, the farmhouse had been packed with guests that weekend, including […]

Palin to oversee energy in McCain administration?

OMFG: "Sarah Palin to be energy independence chief in John McCain’s government" I’m not sure how much to credit this — it’s the Brit press, after all, and tied to a single, unnamed "McCain campaign official." But it wouldn’t surprise me. They’ve somehow managed to pitch a woman whose sole claim to expertise on energy […]

Only GMOs and agrichemicals can ‘feed the world,’ don’t you know?

People involved in the sustainable food movement have been debating the best ways to promote what Wendell Berry recently called “local adaptation” with regard to food and agriculture. The point is to shift away from a paradigm of relying on a fossil fuel-powered agriculture system to feed people living far away from the actual farms […]

Snippets from the news

• Building boom could lead to water crisis in Spain. • One of largest U.S. Hummer stores closes its doors. • Can pollution make you fat? • Could invasive species be a good thing? • Zinc mining could threaten world’s deepest lake.

National Clean Energy Summit videos

A few weeks ago I went to the National Clean Energy Summit (coverage here) organized by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. It’s the kind of thing Dems do — wonky, tedious, strenuously bipartisan (even though no Republicans of note show up or give a sh*t), and quickly forgotten. Meanwhile Republicans dominate the debate with their […]