Latest Articles

It’s Mill-er Time

What readers are talking about on the blog this week This week on Gristmill, the big debate is over ex-Schwarzenegger adviser Terry Tamminen’s support for hydrogen cars. He’s taking a lot of heat — so if any hydrogen supporters are lurking out there, now’s the time to speak up. In other bloggy news, staff writer […]

Ted Again

Cable magnate Ted Turner forms solar-energy business partnership Remember Ted Turner? Tall fellow, gray hair, owned a lotta cable TV and a lotta land and was married to Jane Fonda? Yeah, that one. Well, he’s back, and he’s sinking some of his legendary wealth into solar technology. Partnering with four-year-old, New Jersey-based Dome-Tech Solar, the […]

Manipulation Nation

U.S. risk-assessment draft completely eviscerated by real live scientists The Bush administration’s quest to make federal-agency evaluations of public-health risks from chemicals and other products even more meaningless has been stymied. A draft risk-assessment policy issued by the White House Office of Management and Budget has been called “fundamentally flawed” by the National Research Council, […]

Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm is Fined

Insurer slapped with $2.5 million penalty in post-Katrina jury decision If a house falls in the Gulf Coast region and no insurer is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Heck yes — in this case, a $2.7 million boom that’s ricocheting around the country. Yesterday, a federal jury ordered insurance company State […]

Carbon offsets and human rights

More evidence was released today demonstrating the complexity and oxymoronic nature of "ethical capitalism." This time it has to do with carbon offsets.

According to "A funny place to store carbon," a report issued today by the World Rainforest Movement, villagers living along the edges of Mount Elgon National Park in east Uganda, the site of a Dutch-owned carbon offset project, have been beaten, shot at, and repeatedly denied access to their land by armed park rangers guarding the "carbon trees" inside the park.

Starting in Wash.

It looks like the Washington legislature is going to take up eminent domain soon. According to editorial coverge in the P-I:

A bill this legislative session should require general public notification (beyond Web-based meeting dockets) of condemnation decisions and direct notification of landowners by any government considering using eminent domain to acquire property. Openness is vital.

That sounds like an unalloyed good to me.

Let’s wonk it out

DR: On our site there are many people highly skeptical about biofuels. For lots of reasons: corn ethanol barely breaks even on energy balance. It’s an environmental nightmare, with nitrogen fertilizers in the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. It is a commodity sector governed by a few massive multinational corporations, which are lavished […]

NAS smacks Bush admin.

Remember when it seemed like there was some kind of force field around Bush? Like Rove had completely mastered the political game, Cheney ran the geopolitical scene like a puppetmaster, Rumsfeld bestrode the Pentagon, and Congress was packed with courtiers? It was hard to bring to mind, watching Bush give his speech the other night. […]

Plans for the long weekend?

Many folks have a long weekend this week as the nation pauses to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday. And to honor King’s legacy, organizations around the country will be taking part in a day of service. Social, political, and environmental justice are the main focuses of the service events, emphasizing the need […]

A new organization does it for you

As globalization takes off, it's not only governments that have the power to affect millions of lives. We expect to hold democratically elected officials accountable -- but what about unelected bigwigs, CEOs, foundation heads, philanthropists, and NGO leaders?