Latest Articles

Breaking: Dept. of Energy pulls support for FutureGen

Whoa! The Dept. of Energy just announced that it’s yanking its support for FutureGen, the much-ballyhooed and much-delayed “clean coal” demonstration plant that greens refer to, never more appropriately, as NeverGen. What’s behind the decision? “Ballooning costs.” But wait … I thought coal was cheap!? UPDATE: Note that Senator Dick Durbin expresses great outrage and […]

Notable quotable

“… perhaps the worst example of inter-specific aggression any of us had ever seen. This young female had literally had the life beaten out of her.” — members of the Cetacean Research and Rescue Unit, commenting on the recent discovery that packs of dolphins are attacking, pursuing, and bludgeoning to death not only porpoises but […]

FEMA said to ignore research on effects of toxic hurricane trailers

While housing Hurricane Katrina refugees in formaldehyde-tainted trailers, the Federal Emergency Management Agency “ignored, hid, and manipulated” government research on the long-term effects of formaldehyde on humans, according to an investigation by congressional Democrats.

Focus the Nation events to heat up campuses across the U.S.

Focus the Nation, a series of climate-change-focused educational events on over 1,000 campuses across the United States, is basically the student-centered cousin of Step It Up. And if you were one of the thousands who attended SIU (or SIU 2), you know that raising climate consciousness doesn't have to be a drab affair. It can be a colorful, creative, youth-infused party of a time. Enter Focus the Nation.

Hoping to pick up where SIU left off, Focus the Nation is gathering together thousands of students and teachers for climate festivities, billing it as the largest teach-in in U.S. history. It all goes down Jan. 31. (Or, you know, whatever the kids say these days.)

If people want to keep up with the Joneses, could they at least adopt a different set of Joneses?

Social scientists tell us that having more material goods doesn’t make us happier, but that we buy them in order to retain parity with our social group. It is very difficult to resist this urge to keep up with the Joneses. It is, however, possible to voluntarily adopt a different set of Joneses with a […]

Conservation work will potentially be undone by climate change

Habitat preservation is a noble cause — so it’s really too bad that many conservation efforts may end up rendered moot by climate change. For example, restoration of Pacific Northwest salmon runs won’t do much good if warming makes streams unlivable; restoring fresh water flow in the Everglades will be somewhat pointless if sea-level rise […]

Republican primary in Florida

In case you hadn’t heard, there’s a Republican primary in Florida today. It has largely come down to a Romney/McCain contest, the polls have been bouncing all over the place, it’s utterly impossible to predict what will happen, and it’s likely that whoever wins — particularly if it’s a sizeable win — will secure the […]

In case you’d forgotten, industrial meat is a friggin’ nightmare

It’s a little weird that no one on Gristmill has yet pointed to Mark Bittman’s stellar NYT piece on the environmental ravages of industrial meat. Philpott, where you at? Anyway, it’s amazing. Go read it. Here’s a taste (ha ha): Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word "raising" when applied to animals in factory […]

The Big Three attempt to persuade other states of the danger of fuel efficiency standards

Automakers are ramping up their PR effort to persuade states not to adopt California’s auto emission standards, which they fear will survive the Bush administration’s latest monkey wrench. But their arguments are as silly as ever: Dave McCurdy, chief executive of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers … said the California-inspired initiative would result in a […]

Green group and Chinese dam owners will work together to address eco-impact

The company that owns China’s problem-stricken Three Gorges Dam is expected to sign a pact with The Nature Conservancy to conduct a feasibility study on flood risk and floodplain management within the Three Gorges Dam reservoir. The Three Gorges Dam Company and the green group have also agreed to cooperate on researching eco-minded management of […]