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  • UN Declares ’07 Year of the Dolphin

    Happy New Year! As you may have heard, the Chinese have confirmed 2007 as the Year of the Pig and Newsweek has coined it the Year of the Widget. But my personal favorite designation comes from the United Nations, which has declared 2007 the Year of the Dolphin.

    We've got our work cut out for us over at Oceana to do justice to this special year. In 2006, we stopped Congress from weakening the Marine Mammal Protection Act, thanks to a little help from our friends on the right. Some members of Congress tried to eliminate the "Dolphin Deadline," a key provision of the Act that sets the timeline to reduce the death and injury of marine mammals by commercial fishing operations to insignificant levels. Hopefully, this year we'll be able to do even more to protect the dolphins.

  • Ag chair presents his vision on biofuels

    Collin PetersonHouse Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), along with two members of Congress from South Dakota, Rep. Stephanie Herseth (D) and Sen. John Thune (R), participated in the annual South Dakota Corn Growers convention on Saturday.

    Naturally, a big part of the convention's focus was on ethanol.

  • NYT readers weigh in

    In the NYT there are six letters to the editor about Andy Revkin’s much-discussed article. Naturally, my favorite is the one that says … … on every major point, starting with the question of whether climate change is an established scientific finding, the middle stance agrees with the Gore position and rejects the Bush deception. […]

  • Good, random stuff

    Some random bits I’ve been meaning to get to: ThinkProgress says: This morning on ABC’s This Week, George Stephanopoulos reported that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) "is considering setting up a special committee in the House to deal with climate change and global warming." Also on ABC, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) called climate change "the most […]

  • Or at least the Virgos therein

    Reading my local alt-weekly The Stranger the other day, I happened to notice my horoscope for the week, courtesy of Free Will Astrology: Patriarch Bartholomew, the leader of the Orthodox Christian Church, has a flock of 300 million. Unlike most other religious leaders, he crusades for the preservation of the environment. “To commit a crime […]

  • Young bucks make cool bikes

    I am always biking past interesting characters like David and his dog Odin. Dave had welded up a sidecar so his dog (who extends his paw at the mention of the word cookie) wouldn't feel lonely being dragged around in a trailer. He has carried everything from a cat to a 190-pound guy in it. This is what the entrepreneurial spirit is all about. If you can't buy what you want, build your own and sell it.

  • Opportunity costs redux

    The Bush administration is working on plans to spend $100 billion on new nuclear weapons. Tell me again how fighting global warming is too expensive.

  • Naked, warm, angry dudes hold silent protest of global warming

    The Coney Island Polar Bear Club staged a silent protest on Saturday, huddled (but not shivering) on the beach in Brooklyn as record temperatures were recorded in New York City and the surrounding region. The high temperatures may lead to the cancellation of this year’s round of nearly-naked nuts running into bodies of water. It […]