Latest Articles

Starter Kit Your Engines!

It’s not too late to win a chance at a Grist green-living kit Perhaps you’ve noticed that we’ve been raising money over the last week or so. If you’ve already given, many thanks. If not, we shall now attempt to bribe you with shiny baubles. Hey! Look over there! It’s a shiny metal canteen! And […]

Yellow Jersey Optional

City of Paris to begin bike-sharing program Ah, Paris. The sex tape! The jail time! Wait, wait … wrong Paris. Ahem. The croissants! The berets! The phallic tower! And now: the free bikes! By mid-July, 10,648 bicycles will show up in 750 stations across The City of Love, allowing riders to pick them up and […]

As If Trees Didn’t Have Enough to Worry About

As landowners age, future of family-owned forests in U.S. is unclear An interesting phenomenon is sprouting up among American landowners — or forest-owners, to be precise. Nearly 60 percent of U.S. forests are privately owned, most by families and individuals, the majority of whom are 55 years old and older. More often than not, aging […]

Birds of a Feather Decline Together

Common American bird populations have dropped sharply Populations of 20 common American bird species have declined by at least half in the last 40 years, according to a new analysis from the Audubon Society. Hard-hit species include the whippoorwill, meadowlark, common tern, field sparrow, ruffed grouse and — our favorite to say — common grackle. […]

Bill of Fights

In exclusive blog post, Kerry calls for energy progress and laments GOP roadblocks Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) swung by our blog Gristmill yesterday to post about the ongoing tussle in the Senate over a bill intended to reform the U.S. energy system. He and his allies are pushing for 20 percent of U.S. electricity to […]

Well, sorta

One of the most striking findings from this year's Cascadia Scorecard from Sightline Institute (just released Tuesday, by the way) is that Northwesterners -- or, more properly, the residents of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and British Columbia -- are using less gasoline. In fact, per person gas consumption on the Northwest's roads and highways has fallen by nearly a tenth since the late 1990s.

To put the recent declines in context: cutting gas consumption by nearly a tenth is equivalent to each driver taking a one-month holiday from driving each year. At this point, the average resident of the U.S. Northwest uses less gas than at any time since 1967.

Antarctica gig lined up for Live Earth concerts

Antarctica gig lined up for Live Earth concerts:

OK, so they're not rock stars. But scientists with the British Antarctic Survey will guarantee Al Gore's promise that the Live Earth concerts on July 7 will be performed on all 7 continents.

They'll be performing during the dead of winter at the Rothera Research Station. In fact, it'll be the first time anyone outside the station has heard the indie rock-folk band, Nunatak, play at all. (Nunatak, by the way, is a Greenlandic word that means an exposed summit of a ridge mountain or peak within an ice field or glacier.)

Compressed air, not hot air

In contrast to the hot air coming out of Washington and Detroit, India is opting for compressed air. Deets here.

More intransigence on climate change

Hello! I just wanted to drop by Gristmill to give all of you an update on the energy bill. To no one's surprise, the Republicans are throwing sand in the gears and trying to block any meaningful progress.

The energy bill, as it stands, is not nearly strong enough, so there are a number of amendments that must be adopted to give us a bill that actually gets us started on that path of dealing with our energy crisis and our climate crisis.

I’m baaaack …

I’m writing this post while sitting at the Grist booth at Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn. If you’re here, come say hi — and explain why you’re reading Gristmill instead of listening to some of the amazing music out here. It seems like it was just a year ago that I was […]