Latest Articles

Coming Clean

Green start-ups attracting substantial venture capital Investor interest in eco-friendly start-ups has taken a leap with the entry of two big venture-capital players into the field. Two California public pension funds — the largest and third-largest in the U.S. — recently announced plans to invest a combined $950 million in the clean-technology field in coming […]

Oops, We Did It Again

Native Americans at risk from toxic military leftovers More than a century ago, the U.S. slaughtered a bunch of indigenous folks and put the rest on reservations in the most arid, isolated, undesirable parts of the American West. A new study shows that many closed military sites in the Lower 48 states — including bombing […]

Salmon, haiku, Grist

The scrappy B.C.-based alternative online journal The Tyee recently published an interesting pair of point-counterpoint sytle pieces on farmed salmon. The first claimed farmed B.C. salmon were escaping into the wild; the second claimed that the first was hokum.

But enough about salmon. Let's talk about the contest Tyee is running in conjunction with the pieces. It asks readers to send in ... haiku ... hey, wait a minute!  That sounds familiar!

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, well, consider us flattered.

Paulding Gray

Mega-farms in Ohio offer stench but little else to communities The Plain Dealer examines the effects of eight giant hog farms built in Paulding County, Ohio, since 1994 and five mega-dairies since 2000, and comes away with a grim cautionary tale. A number of local families have fled from their homes, some unable to live […]

Organic is becoming popular … the horror!

An article in CorpWatch adeptly summarizes what strikes me as a classic dilemma facing enviro(nmentalist)s: Organic food is becoming more popular and the organic food industry is growing.  As it grows, large corporations are taking an interest, buying small organic companies, and attempting to supersize organic farming operations. By some estimates the percentage of organic food sold by organic markets has fallen from over 60 percent to just over 30 percent -- the rest taken up by Wal-Marty type stores (and a miniscule percentage by farmers' markets, food-buying clubs, and the like). Organic is going corporate.

Reactions, as you would expect, are split.

John Emory Parks, international marine expert, answers questions

What work do you do? I’m an international affairs specialist with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal oceans agency. How does it relate to the environment? NOAA oversees a number of environmental duties in the U.S., from monitoring climate and forecasting weather to managing fish stocks within U.S. waters and protecting critical […]

Umbra on doggie-doo bags

Dear Umbra, For years, I faithfully brought my canvas bags to the grocery store, leaving plastic bags for the environmentally uninformed. A few months ago, though, I adopted a dog, and I now find myself with a dilemma. I need to pick up all of his solid excrement, and having no compost or any other […]

Much Ado About Nothing

Celebrate Buy Nothing Day by sitting on your derriere Traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year, the Friday after Thanksgiving sends millions of Americans, drone-like, to the malls to kick-start the holiday consumption orgy. But before you foil-wrap the roast beast and stash the organic cranberry dressing in the fridge, consider celebrating another holiday: […]

Pan of Green Gobbles

Sales of organic turkeys and Tofurky on the rise The organic turkey is the new Prius. If you’re planning to carve one up for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving meal, you’re riding the latest wave of eco-chic. Organic turkey sales at Whole Foods Market have doubled this year, the upscale natural-foods chain reports. And that’s building on impressive […]

Celebrate Buy Nothing Day at Wal-Mart

This Friday I'll join culture jammers and lazy-asses the world over in celebrating Buy Nothing Day (inspired by those jammers exemplar over at Adbusters). Stick it to The Man by sitting on your duff; dig it.

More energetic rabble-rousers are encouraged to head to the nearest lair of Beelzebub (Wal-Mart, yo), not to feed the beast, but to congest the aisles as part of a Whirl-Mart Consumption Awareness Ritual. (See live action video of such!)