Latest Articles

Maybe-extinct Chinese river dolphin maybe spotted

Competing with the maybe-alive maybe-not ivory-billed woodpecker in the United States for Most Ethereal Species, a rare Chinese river dolphin thought to be extinct as of last December may have been spotted recently. “I never saw such a big thing in the water before, so I filmed it,” said amateur creature-spotter Zeng Yujiang. Unfortunately, the […]

College residence halls trending toward green … and not-so-green

I’m excited about this new trend toward green dorm design and decor, such as the Green Campus Program in California wherein new students can tour a dorm room pimped out with, for example, "hemp towels, organic cotton sheets, a reusable elephant grass shopping basket, and bed frames made of recycled train tracks." But I’m bummed […]

Bloggy backslapping

Adam Stein is never wiser or more perspicacious than when he’s, uh, agreeing with me.

Driving Us to Vegetarianism

Animal-rights groups say meat-eating worse for climate than driving With which instrument do you cause more greenhouse-gas emissions: your car key or your fork? It’s a question asked in an advertising campaign by the Humane Society, which, along with other big animal-rights groups, is striving to open consumers’ eyes to an oft-overlooked connection: the climatic […]

My Art Will Go On

Grist reporters and guest brains address Leo’s 11th Hour Superbad may have topped box office sales this past weekend, but Leonardo DiCaprio’s eco-documentary The 11th Hour, which opened in theaters around the U.S. and Canada on Friday, showed moviegoers what’s truly superbad: the state of our environment. The film features dozens of eco-experts talking about […]

No Looking Back

Los Angeles Times series looks at NOLA’s rebuilding effort two years later The two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina is a largely grim occasion, but a Los Angeles Times series has found cause for inspiration. In a 10-story installment, the paper appraises the rebuilding effort in New Orleans and the innovation it has sparked — particularly […]

Gorges Ain’t Gorgeous

China’s Three Gorges Dam plagued by environmental problems China’s Three Gorges Dam got a lot of flak during construction for its environmental impact and for uprooting over 1 million people. A year after its completion, critics’ concern about the world’s largest hydroelectric project has only increased. The weight of the water behind the dam, along […]

How globalization is smothering U.S. fruit and vegetable farms

Earlier this month, President Bush roiled U.S. vegetable farmers by announcing a crackdown on undocumented workers. Last week, industrial-meat giant Smithfield Foods goosed the hog-futures market by inking a deal to export 60 million pounds of U.S.-grown pork to China. These events, unrelated though they seem, illustrate a common point: that despite all the recent […]

… for real

It sounds like an unappetizing combination, I know, but it's for real: http://www.shrimp-petrofest.org/

USDA brings the enforcement hammer down on nation’s largest organic dairy producer

This, fresh from the Cornucopia Institute, is big news: Tonight at 7:20 p.m. EST, August 29, the USDA issued an emergency news release announcing that they had sent a Letter of Revocation to the Aurora Organic Dairy. In lieu of revoking Aurora’s organic certification, the Agency has instead entered into a consent agreement requiring the […]