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In case you weren’t convinced about the horrors of dioxin …

just look at the face of Ukranian presidential candidate Victor Yushchenko (before and after photos here).  Yikes. The bizarre case of his poisoning has brought renewed attention to this frightening substance, a byproduct of herbicide manufacturing, paper milling, waste incineration, and other nasty industrial processes.  

As BushGreenwatch points out, the Bushies are dragging their feet on curbing dioxin pollution, both domestically and internationally. "They've done nothing in regulations, and I don't see anything on dioxin moving on the federal level in the next four years," said Lois Gibbs, executive director of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice and an activist who made a name for herself by fighting for justice at Love Canal.

One might think this ghastly, high-profile assassination attempt -- complete with very public, physical evidence of the horrific damage dioxin can do -- could provide a needed kick in the pants. But don't hold your breath.  

Bushies gut national forest rules

Three days before Christmas, the Bush administration announced that it's making the biggest overhaul to forest-management rules in some three decades. The news made the front page of today's New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, etc. -- but ya gotta know it'll slip by unnoticed by a great many folks stuck in whited-out airports in the Midwest and teeming malls everywhere else.  

It's been a while since the Bushies pulled one of these announce-an-environmental-abomination-when-no-one's-looking stunts, but they returned to the tactic with a real doozy this time.  

"A key wildlife protection that has governed federal forest management for more than two decades will be dropped under new regulations announced Wednesday by the Bush administration, and requirements for public involvement in planning for the country's 192 million acres of national forest will be dramatically altered," write Bettina Boxall and Lisa Getter in the L.A. Times.  

With Leavitt on the way out, who’ll be next to head up the EPA?

Leavitt, left, accepts Bush’s nomination to head HHS and leave EPA behind. Photo: WhiteHouse.gov. There were plenty of “Leavitt or leave it” jokes when former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt (R) took the helm at the U.S. EPA just over a year ago. Many insiders didn’t expect him to stay long at the agency, figuring he […]

Vacation: not just for Europeans any more

As alert readers know, every year around this time, Grist takes a two-week publishing break, while we staffers try to get used to being away from a keyboard for a while. The finger-twitching usually dies down right about the time we have to come back.

The break starts Monday, and consequently posting will be very light, possibly (one can hope!) absent entirely.

We'll be back on Jan. 3, with some exciting developments for Gristmill. Stay tuned.

Green bytes

Some tips over at About.com on greening your high-tech purchases.

Wangari Maathai’s Nobel Lecture

Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, in Oslo, Norway, on Dec. 10, 2004:

The Gonad Test

Joel Gallob, who writes for the Newport (Oregon) News, has a fascinating column on Tidepool.

It points out the awful time lag between how fishing is regulated and how fish populations change. There's too much fishing when fish populations plummet and too little fishing when populations surge. And he suggests an ingenious mechanism -- involving the gonads of female black rockfish -- for synchronizing fishing with fish numbers. Check it out.

And to All a Good Fortnight

We’re leaving for two weeks; we’ll miss you As is our yearly custom, Grist will be taking a two-week publishing break, starting Monday. We’ll return on Jan. 3, rested and ready to publish the heck out of some environmental news and commentary. While we’re off intercepting whaling ships, setting up solar stations in indigenous villages, […]

Regular Folk

Human compost boosts harvests in Mozambique The more than 2,500 residents of Mozambique’s impoverished village of Matimangwe have harnessed the power of their poo to fertilize their crops, and the village is now on the road to sustainable food production and development. Thanks to a human-waste compost latrine system called EcoSan, villagers have seen a […]

It Was a Dark and Stormy Year …

2004 sets records for heat and natural disasters 2004 may be the fourth warmest year on record and the most expensive to date for insurance companies stuck with the tab for cleaning up after natural disasters, according to new data released this week. Extreme weather conditions in many parts of the world, including a record […]