Latest Articles

Umbra on tankless water heaters

Dear Umbra, While you were warning folks to plan ahead for a potential water-tank failure, I thought you should mention the natural gas heat-on-demand systems that they should use to replace their tanks. Last spring, when our 50-gallon tank decided to give our basement floor a thorough cleaning, we had to scramble to find an […]

Survey Says: Don’t Survey!

Bush Admin. to Ease Rare Species Restrictions on Old-Growth Logging Timber companies hoping to log on federal land in the Northwest will no longer be responsible for surveying and protecting some 300 rare plant and animal species, the Bush administration announced on Friday. (Yes, it’s yet another Friday rollback; they were hoping you wouldn’t notice.) […]

Umbra on wood stoves

Dear Umbra, When you suggested that someone may want wood heat because it “makes you feel like a country stud,” you made an erroneous assumption — that your audience is entirely urban. Here in Skamokawa, Wash., many a mile from the nearest natural gas line, the choices are essentially wood or electricity. In September, my […]

Adam Browning, Vote Solar Initiative

Adam Browning is the cofounder and director of operations for Vote Solar Initiative, a nonprofit organization working to jump-start the transition to renewable energy by helping municipal governments implement large-scale and cost-effective solar energy projects. Monday, 26 Jan 2004 SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. It’s Monday, but I will begin my story a little over two years […]

The League’s Extraordinary Gentleman

League of Conservation Voters Endorses Kerry The League of Conservation Voters has officially endorsed John Kerry for president, marking the first time in the organization’s history that it has backed a candidate prior to the first primaries. Kerry, four-term Democratic senator from Massachusetts, has the best environmental voting record of the Democratic candidates, with an […]

Rivers and Tithes

Judge Rules Government Must Pay for Withheld Water In a case that could have substantial implications for enforcement of the Endangered Species Act, a federal judge ruled recently that the U.S. government must pay California irrigators some $14 million for water it withheld from them during an early 1990s drought in the state. The water […]

That Ken-do Spirit

London’s Mayor Pushes Solar Panels London’s lefty mayor, known (either fondly or derisively, depending on whom you talk to) as “Red Ken” Livingstone, is calling for the “vast majority” of new homes built in London to include photovoltaic solar panels. The requirement is part of a set of strict building and planning rules for local […]

Readers sound off on Lynn Scarlett, Howard Dean, and more

  Scarlett All Bark, Bush Bites Re: Interior Design Dear Editor: After having the opportunity to hear Lynn Scarlett speak at an MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning luncheon this past fall, I am glad to see Grist shining some light on functionaries in the Bush administration who are driving and justifying environmental policy. […]

You Know the Drill

Bush Admin. Opens Nearly 9 Million Alaskan Acres to Oil Exploration Interior Secretary Gale Norton approved a plan on Thursday that will open nearly 9 million acres of pristine land on Alaska’s North Slope to oil exploration and drilling. She pledged that the exploration and production in the area, a section of the huge National […]

The Thinners Have Much More Fun

Forest Service to Triple Sierra Nevada Logging Citing the need to prevent catastrophic forest fires like the ones that plagued Southern California last year, on Thursday the U.S. Forest Service announced a plan to spend $50 million a year to thin forests in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. The plan would allow logging of 330 million […]