Latest Articles

Law-mowers

Republicans in Congress Try to Undermine California’s Environmental Laws Many Republicans argue that the federal government should leave more decisions to the states, but these days they’re abandoning their states’ rights talk when it comes to California — and the state’s environment could suffer as a result. The GOP-controlled Congress is trying to undermine a […]

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

Pollutant-Chomping Bacterium Cleans Up Contaminated Sites A pollutant-munching bacterium is earning plaudits in Fairfield, N.J., where the U.S. EPA has been using it to clean up a Superfund site contaminated with poison-laced sewage. The mysterious little bacterium, with the unwieldy name of Dehalococcoides ethenogenes, was discovered in 1997 by scientists at Cornell University who determined […]

Enviros berate Bush apologist for inaccurate L.A. Times op-ed

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times published an editorial by the widely known environmental gadfly Gregg Easterbrook — a senior editor at the New Republic and a fellow at the Brookings Institution — who set out to roast (or rather deep-fry) critics of the Bush administration’s environmental record. He dismissed charges made by everyone from […]

Calf-kaesque

Melting of South American Glaciers Leads to Sea-Level Rise Glaciers in the Patagonia region of southern Argentina and Chile are melting so fast that they are leading to a tiny but notable rise in sea level, U.S. scientists report in the latest issue of the journal Science. The glaciers are melting twice as quickly as […]

Swing, Voter Voter Voter

Former Clinton Officials Gear Up to Fight Bush on Environment A group of prominent ex-Clintonites — including former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and former EPA Administrator Carol Browner — are teaming up with enviros to raise money for a campaign that will bash Bush’s environmental record in swing states. The Environment 2004 effort (clever name, […]

The Bees’ Knees Are Knocking

Major British Study Pans GM Crops as Harmful to Wildlife Bad news just keeps on coming for British backers of genetically modified foods, a group whose most high-profile member is Prime Minister Tony Blair. The latest: A three-year government investigation billed as the world’s largest study of the environmental effects of GM crops has found […]

Air Bawl

States Tighten Air Rules in the Wake of Federal Loosening A number of states and cities are thumbing their noses at the Bush administration’s moves to weaken air-pollution rules by imposing their own stricter regulations. Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and other states, as well as a few cities, announced yesterday that they are making […]

Umbra on reversing the tide

Dear Umbra, I can’t take it! A body-building actor was just elected governor of my state! I’m going to go mad! Then my friend said, “Don’t get mad, get even.” You’ve got to help me — California is crazy, but at least we’ve been setting the standard on some environmental issues. (Not all of them, […]

Links and info on candidates, voting, and other election intrigue

  Register to Vote Meet the Candidates What the Polls Say Additional Resources Register to Vote Get off your duff and register to vote! Think you’ve got this one in the bag? Better check twice. Have you moved since the last time you sallied poll-ward? Changed your name? Switched your party of choice? Are you […]

A look at state and local races and rumblings around the U.S.

Click on the map to read about each region. All politics are local, as the saying goes — and so in this section of Grist’s special edition on elections and the environment, we turn our attention away from the federal government to describe some of the ways the environment has made it onto the ballot […]