Latest Articles

Grist pulls a Huck Finn

Grist is rollin’ (rollin’!) on the river this week, and we’re taking you with us. We’re bound for the Mississippi — the legendary waterway recently deemed an “orphan” of the federal government. Just call us Sarah van Sawyer and Huckleberry Wroth. We’ve ventured here to find out how three cities are reinventing their once-industrial waterfronts, […]

Web company announces selection of offset projects

Back in April, Yahoo! announced that it will be going carbon neutral in 2007, and pledged to be entirely transparent about the process. They acknowledged the controversy around offsets: We know carbon neutrality isn’t without controversy. And it’s honestly deserved if companies and individuals don’t first make an effort to find direct ways to reduce […]

The fight against coal makes for strange bedfellows out West

The fight against coal is spilling out of the "environmental" box the coal industry wants to keep it in: An increasingly vocal, potent and widespread anti-coal movement is developing [across the West]. Environmental groups that have long opposed new power plants are being joined by ranchers, farmers, retired homeowners, ski resort operators and even religious […]

White House warns Democrats of energy bill veto

I mentioned that the Bush White House sent a letter to Congressional Democrats last week, regarding what it would find acceptable for an energy bill. I’ve gotten a copy of the letter, from a top-secret source who risked his career, his family, even his life bringing this information to light. Thanks Adam! Let me know […]

October is Energy Awareness Month

October is Energy Awareness Month. What's more, October first got this designation from the first President Bush in 1991.

Why do I know this? Because the only people I have ever met who know about Energy Awareness Month are people who have worked at the Department of Energy. I'm going to change all that with this blog post, which will probably double the number of people aware of Energy Awareness Month. Don't worry, though, the DOE has made it easy to take action:

To help you customize your energy awareness program, You Have the Power campaign artwork is available for you to download from the images [on this website].

This is my favorite downloadable poster. Click on the image for animation -- I could watch it for hours. And yes, since you ask, the energy savings from walking one or two flights of stairs instead of using an elevator is humongous -- easily equal to those cancelled Kansas coal plants. Easily! (Although if there are other people waiting for the elevator, then it was going to run anyway, but don't go all techno-nerd on me -- it is the thought that counts!)

Even the greenest suburbs can’t touch low urban emission rates

Last Sunday, the Washington Post published a piece by Joel Kotkin and Ali Modarres which sought to debunk the ideas that dense urban areas are greener than their suburban counterparts and that encouraging dense growth might play a significant role in reducing America’s carbon output. The piece was wrong or misleading on practically every point, […]

Evangelicals gather in D.C. and reaffirm that climate is not their focus

In D.C., the Values Voters Summit is in full swing. For those not familiar, the summit is a who’s-who gathering of the modern-day religious right, where Republican presidential candidates come to beg, plead, and pander for evangelical support. This is of some interest to greens, because there’s been a ton of talk over the last […]

Overlap in supervision allows sea turtles to slip through the cracks

Ask any number of surfers, divers, and ocean-goers of all stripes what one of their favorite ocean critters is, and chances are a good percentage of them will mention sea turtles.

George Will’s latest column tests the limits of self parody

George Will pulls off a real triple axel of hackery in his latest column, taking the Stepford flimflam of Bjorn Lomborg and ladling on a glutinous serving of his own pinkie-raised pomposity. Rarely has such a poor grasp of the facts been presented with such preening self-regard … at least since the last George Will […]

Insomniac zebra fish and stranded sea-turtle babies

... in defiance of a 1959 treaty that agreed no new claims would be laid on Antarctica, press reports say Britain is poised to claim a million square kilometers of Antarctic seabed ...

... the Canadian government announced it would add six new positions dedicated to fisheries assessment in the Arctic ...

... scientists began mapping the seafloor off the coast of Ulster. One scientist said the results would show that 90 percent of the Irish Republic is land beneath water ...