Latest Articles

Roll Out the Green Carpet

As sales of green building products go up, prices come down Construction companies are increasingly turning to green products, and saving greenbacks in the process. It’s still widely believed that eco-friendly products are more costly than their not-so-eco-friendly counterparts, but that state of affairs is changing. Carpet made of recycled plastic and floor boards composed […]

All the Same Toxicity, Now With 90 Percent Ubiquity!

Rocket-fuel chemical taints lettuce and milk throughout the U.S. Here’s some unsettling food news: Perchlorate, an explosive component of rocket fuel, was found in about 90 percent of lettuce samples and 97 percent of milk samples from around the U.S. tested by the Food and Drug Administration. Health officials said the levels of contamination found […]

Moss Def

Moss gathering worries biologists, few others Valued by florists and craft mavens as basket liner and wreath adornment, moss is a hot commodity, according to several researchers raising concerns about the loosely regulated moss-gathering industry. Moss harvesters roam public and private lands scraping the plant from logs and boulders at an estimated rate of 10 […]

Less Salmon, More Dammin’

Northwest salmon to lose critical habitat; Bush admin to keep dams A double dose of salmon news today: The Bush administration yesterday announced its intention to cut by more than 80 percent the miles of rivers and streams designated as critical habitat for threatened and endangered Northwest runs of salmon and steelhead. The plan, which […]

Mo’ trash

Speaking of trash, Joel Makower has a nice round-up of developments in the turning-waste-into-energy field. Turns out there is such a field, and it's busy as a bee.

Detroit in the rearview mirror

When Scott Kirsner visited General Motors, he found its executives dismissive of Japanese automakers' focus on hybrids.  GM vice chairman of product development Bob Lutz said the decision not to make a hybrid "was a mistake from one aspect, and that's public relations and catering to the environmental movement."

GM believes that hybrids are but a temporary stepping stone on the road to a bright, shiny, World's Fair-esque future of hydrogen-powered cars. Meanwhile, Toyota and Honda get farther and farther ahead in the hybrid market.

Kirsner thinks Detroit is making a mistake, and makes a good case in Salon.com.

An excerpt from The War Against the Greens takes a hard look at the Wise Use movement

In 1988, the Wise Use movement was founded out of fear that George Bush Sr. was going to live up to his campaign pledge to be "the environmental president." This cabal of anti-environmental activists, organized by federally subsidized industries dependent on public lands, issued a natal document, the Wise Use Agenda. It called for, among other things: drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, logging Alaska's Tongass National Forest, opening wilderness to energy development, gutting the Endangered Species Act, and privatizing national parks. Today, the reactionary Wise Use Agenda has become the environmental policy of the administration of George Bush Jr.

Talking trash

Interesting post from occasional Gristmill contributor Alan Durning over on Cascadia Scorecard, about who's responsible for trash. You probably assume "local government," but it turns out there are more eco-friendly alternatives, percolating in British Columbia.

Roundtrippin’ from local to global

Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai isn't just sticking to the local environment, development, and security struggles that earned her the 2004 award. Dr. Maathai, the Kenyan environmental activist and deputy environment minister, recently called on African governments to be more aggressive in addressing climate change. She argued for presenting the climate change challenge in "simple terms" with "simple solutions" such as planting trees.  Read more on BBC.

Hydrogen at what cost?

Hydrogen is a clean-burning fuel, but it's difficult to make in quantity. What if we could make "the equivalent of 200,000 gallons of gasoline each day" in hydrogen with a single processing plant? That would be great, eh? What if we had to do it with nuclear power?

Tough call. Green Car Congress has a mind-bendingly technical write-up of the process, if you're interested in the nuts and bolts.

Could enviros embrace nuclear to get this much clean energy? What do you think?