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Ash Holes

Enviro Groups Ask EPA to Halt Ash Dumping A coalition of 125 environmental groups has filed a petition with the U.S. EPA, asking it to immediately halt the dumping of waste ash from coal-fired power plants. They claim the ash contains a variety of toxins and pollutes ground, surface, and drinking water. The EPA promised […]

Snoop Doggy Doggs

Robotic Dogs Sniff Out Environmental Toxins Engineers at Yale have developed robotic dogs that can sniff out environmental toxins at contaminated sites. The mechanical critters were originally designed and marketed as toys by Sony and other companies, but an intrepid crew at Yale modified the robo-puppies with sensors that detect environmentally damaging chemical compounds and […]

Low-carb diets have a high impact on the planet

Lose That Extra Weight … While Eating the Foods You Love!” Pleased to meat you. For decades, such headlines were fixtures of supermarket checkout lanes, to be taken no more seriously than claims of alien abduction. But times have changed. High-protein, low-carbohydrate diets have become wildly popular because they help adherents lose dozens of pounds […]

Mining watchdog Radhika Sarin answers questions

What environmental organization are you affiliated with? What does it do? I work for Earthworks, a new partnership designed by the Mineral Policy Center, which seeks to protect communities and the environment from irresponsible mining. We bring together activists, organizers, scientists, engineers, and community leaders in an effort to change mining policies and practices. What’s […]

One Meeellion Dollars!

Iraq’s Environment Ministry Faces Big Problems and a Small Budget Iraq’s first environment ministry, facing a host of daunting ecological problems and a list of 35 priority projects that would cost more than $200 million, has been allotted a 2004 budget of … $1 million. A report from the United Nations Environment Program presents a […]

Keep the Forest Fires Burning

Critics Charge Forest Service With Overzealous Fire Fighting A growing cadre of critics charge the U.S. Forest Service with fighting too many fires, saying that the cost — in money, lives, and ecological damage — is too high. As logging in national forests has declined by 80 percent over the last decade, fighting fires has […]

Not By the Air of My Chinny-chin-chin

States Expect Clean Air Act Changes Will Increase Pollution Most state environmental officials expect that changes to Clean Air Act rules proposed by the Bush administration would lead to higher air pollution, according to a survey conducted by the General Accounting Office upon the request of Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.). The […]

George W. Jetson

Bush’s Hydrogen-Economy Pipe Dreams Bump Into Reality The hydrogen-powered cars and “hydrogen economy” touted by President Bush in last year’s State of the Union address are several decades from viability, says a report released Wednesday by the National Academy of Sciences. Until hydrogen lives up to its promise, “the government should keep a balanced portfolio […]

Readers sound off on John Kerry, mad cow, and more

  Oh, Now We’re Blushing Re: Just Stick to Tofu Dear Editor: I read the Daily Grist of Jan. 9 and laughed out loud, was outraged, and laughed again. I was moved to finally contribute. I’ve been getting your newsletter for a couple of years and recommend it all the time. I’m a professional tree […]

First-of-its-kind report lambastes ExxonMobil for CO2 emissions

Warning signs. Photo: Greenpeace. ExxonMobil and its predecessor companies stretching back to Standard Oil were responsible for a whopping 5 percent of the world’s total carbon dioxide emissions between 1882 and 2002, thanks to the companies’ operations and the burning of their products, according to a recent study put out by the Coalition for Environmentally […]