Latest Articles

Umbra on fighting pests with pests

Dear Umbra, I have a pest problem in my backyard — specifically, some tiny (but apparently hungry) insect is making lace out of my basil leaves. I do not want to use pesticides for many reasons, not the least of which is that I cook with the herbs I grow. I think I have found […]

So That’s Why Their Little Hearts Beat So Fast

New hummingbird species discovered, imperiled by cocaine trade It’s hard out here for a gorgeted puffleg. The hummingbird species with the fabulous name was just discovered in southwestern Colombia, where farmers slash and burn 1,235 acres of cloud-forest habitat every year to grow coca, the raw ingredient in cocaine. That’s bad news for a species […]

Smells Like Progress

As climate summit continues, fed-up mayors unveil actual plans They cover 1 percent of the Earth’s surface, but the world’s cities spew 80 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions — and 180 percent of climate-action plans. “Where national governments can’t or won’t lead, cities will,” said Toronto Mayor David Miller at the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit […]

Corn ethanol politics

I really don't have anything to add, so here are some excerpts from Motley Fool telling it like it is:

My theory is that the political support for massive biofuel expansion comes down to securing constituents' votes. Politicians know they can benefit politically from selling the benefits of biofuels ... and they also know there's too much at stake politically to back away from the issue. What states' politicians stand to benefit the most from backing biofuel? For starters, we can look at the top 10 ethanol-producing states, [by millions of gallons]:

(Thanks KO)

Or Are You Just Happy to Sue Me?

U.S. prosecutors compare “eco-terrorists” to KKK In its unyielding quest to root out terror at its terror-y roots, the U.S. government is battling to have 10 eco-activists sentenced as terrorists. At a hearing in Eugene, Ore., yesterday, attorneys argued that 10 members of the loosely coalesced Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front deserve the […]

What would you like to ask him?

Tomorrow, I’m sitting down for a chat with Paul Hawken, author, entrepreneur, and environmental legend. We’ll be discussing, among other things, his new book Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming. (If you’re in Seattle tomorrow, you can see Hawken at a Grist-sponsored […]

Friday music blogging comes to Grist

I’ve decided that green or no green, I’m going to start getting some music up on this blog. Every blog needs some music, right? I’ve been digging on the new Modest Mouse album We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. Here’s “Parting of the Sensory,” from which this post’s title comes. And in other […]

Making public transit work

Greater Vancouver leads the Northwest in transit ridership, with somewhere between two and three times as many annual bus and train rides per person as Portland and Seattle.

So the obvious question: How come? Why does Vancouver do so much better in transit statistics than its southern neighbors?

An interview with renowned climate scientist James Hansen

James Hansen. Photo: nasa.gov James Hansen, NASA’s top climate expert, believes scientists have an obligation to speak out when their findings have important implications for the public — and he certainly put that belief into practice last year when he told The New York Times that the Bush administration was trying to muzzle his calls […]

How best to pitch the climate change message?

Mike Hulme of the UK’s Tyndall Centre says — yet again — that the language of "catastrophe" and "disaster" used by climate-change scientists and advocates is having the opposite of its intended effect: it’s making people numb and apathetic. I more or less buy this — I did, after all, write a five-part series arguing […]