Latest Articles

Revisiting the 1970s eco-cult classic that gripped a nation

In the afterword to the 30th-anniversary edition of his 1975 novel, Ernest Callenbach writes, "Looking back, it seems clear that Ecotopia was the first attempt to portray a sustainable society, and that this, more than its modest literary merit, explains its durability." Sadly, there is no false humility in that statement.

They’re going to stay secret.

Carl Pope has more to say about the grim news today that a federal appeals court ruled -- against the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch -- that Cheney can keep the participants and deliberations of his 2001 energy task force secret. This was a real blow. Says Pope:

The whole saga has been sordid, from the secretive operation of the Task Force, in which Enron enjoyed preferential access, Peabody Coal was enabled to time a public stock offering at a highly advantageous moment, huge public subsidies were granted to favored insiders, Judge Scalia went hunting with the vice-president while considering his case and ultimately awarding him the victory that prevented the public from seeing what happened before the election, to this final decision today.

We may never know the details of what happened -- but we certainly know now that keeping those details secret was worth a great deal to the vice-president and probably worth even more to his campaign contributors.

Charismatic animals get all the love.

If you could monitor only 7 species for a region, which would you choose, in order to learn the most about the region's ecological health?

Here's why I ask...

Unless you've been living in a cave, you probably already know that the ivory-billed woodpecker was re-discovered, not extinct after all, in the swamps of Arkansas. But unless you happen to be a mollusk biologist you're probably not aware that two freshwater snails in Alabama were also recently re-discovered alive and well.

Raising CAFE standards may actually backfire.

It's a rare treat to read a dry, technical report and--almost by accident--learn something surprising, counterintuitive, useful, and (at least to me) genuinely new.

Which is exactly what happened when I read this paper (beware, PDF) by Todd Litman at the Victoria Transportation Policy Institute. The upshot: Raising vehicle fuel-economy standards, which always seemed to me like a good idea, may actually be counterproductive, even if they're truly successful at reducing the amount of gasoline the average vehicle consumes per mile.

Politicians are charging commuters to use the roads, and paying no price for it.

Via Planetizen News, evidence that the impossible is finally catching on: According to Governing magazine, more and more jurisdictions in the US and Europe are making drivers pay to use roads when they're congested. And remarkably, the politicians responsible for instituting the tolls don't seem to be paying much of a political price.

NRDC blog

The Natural Resources Defense Council has a new blog. Check it out.

Update [2005-5-11 16:57:51 by Dave Roberts]: Dave's hangover-befogged eyes move upwards to the ad banner hovering at the top of the page ... something about an NRDC blog ... hey, weird, didn't I just write about that? (Last night was greendrinks. I can't be blamed.)

Emily Gertz sends a dispatch from a summit on climate change and investing

Emily Gertz is a regular contributor to WorldChanging.com, and an internet content and strategy consultant for nonprofits. She has written on environmental policy for BushGreenwatch, and on the intersections of environment, culture, art, and activism for The Bear Deluxe and other independent alternative publications. Wednesday, 11 May 2005 NEW YORK, N.Y. Yesterday, nearly 400 people […]

Art for … Well, Not Really for Art’s Sake

Send Grist cool posters! The Grist office walls are looking sadly barren these days (with the exception of a certain unnamed but smitten editor’s life-size Barack Obama poster), and we’re so darn busy bringing you the best green news on the world wide interweb that we don’t have time to hunt down handsome wall decor. […]

Onward Christine Soldier

Washington gov signs groundbreaking renewable-energy legislation Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) has signed into law two bills that some are calling the most progressive renewable-energy legislation in any U.S. state. The measures earned bipartisan support thanks to their focus on creating a renewables market that would generate jobs and boost the state’s economy. One bill […]

Where There’s a Shill, There’s a Way

USDA pays freelance writer to tout Farm Bill’s green cred In an effort to manufacture some green credibility, an Agriculture Department agency hired a freelance “journalist” to produce five articles on the conservation benefits of its Farm Bill programs. Paid at least $7,500 for his work, freelancer Dave Smith was instructed to push his stories […]