Latest Articles

And I Am a Recycled-Material Girl

Madonna releases single to support Live Earth climate efforts What is it about climate change that makes music … suck? First we had Melissa Etheridge’s “I Need to Wake Up,” the earnest, Oscar-winning Inconvenient Truth anthem. Now we have Madonna’s “Hey You,” a somnolent single released this week in conjunction with Live Earth, the continents-spanning […]

The Beak In Review

West Nile virus hitting bird populations hard, says new study The West Nile virus soldiers on, declares a report published yesterday in Nature. Eight years after the virus left the West Nile and made its way to the U.S. Northeast, chickadee populations in the region have dropped 53 percent, while Eastern bluebird populations have been […]

Why Does Bill Richardson Hate America?

Democratic presidential candidate unveils ambitious energy plan Today we bring you part 16 of “Promising Energy Policies Put Forth By U.S. Presidential Candidates Who Don’t Have a Chance in Hell of Getting Elected.” This week, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) has been touting his plan for battling global warming. Yesterday, saying the country needs […]

Get Your Vacuum Cleaner Ready

Southern Ocean losing ability to soak up carbon dioxide, researchers say If you’re counting on the seas to soak up excess emissions and get us out of this climate mess, you might need a new plan. Scientists say Antarctica’s Southern Ocean, a whopper of a “carbon sink,” is losing its ability to absorb more carbon […]

Massachusetts is going to blow

The electrical grid in Massachusetts is getting ready to blow: Documents obtained by the Herald show more than 12,000 transformers from Attleboro to Ayer are operating at above 200 percent capacity, with some as high as 900 percent over design standards. Union officials, who last night reached an agreement in contract talks with National Grid, […]

New Scientist’s troll-b-gone

If our How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic guide doesn’t whet your appetite for debunkery, head on over to New Scientist, which has a new series taking on “the 26 most common climate myths and misconceptions.” Some are familiar to devotees of our guide — they predicted global cooling in the ’70s! — but […]

Circle of Blue

Check out Circle of Blue, a new initiative to coordinate journalists and educators around the mission of injecting the freshwater crisis into mainstream dialogue. Modeshift has a long and informative introduction to the project.

McCain flip-flops on ethanol

John McCain tries to explain his flagrant flip-flop on ethanol: (via Hugg)

The boldest plan on the table

As of today, Bill Richardson has become the boldest, most visionary Democratic presidential candidate on climate and energy policy. (John Edwards is a close second.) No politician from either party has put forward a plan that comes closer to being a realistic response to the energy shortages and climate chaos heading our way. Here’s the […]

Network TV’s best show is cancelled

It’s no secret that we have a Grist-wide crush on Kristen Bell (the world’s sexiest vegetarian!). So I feel obliged to take a break from the green and note with great sorrow that CW has cancelled Veronica Mars, Bell’s sharp, sassy, criminally underappreciated star vehicle. It’s a cliche at this point that females are bombarded […]