Latest Articles
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No More Sulfuring in Silence
China Bans Coal Plants in Big Cities In a much-needed and long-awaited gambit to improve air quality and reduce acid rain, China has banned coal-fired power plants in major cities across the nation. The ban applies to Beijing, Shanghai, and 21 provincial capitals, which together produce approximately 60 percent of China’s sulfur dioxide emissions. Sulfur […]
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Will a softer McCain-Lieberman bill prove to be harder-hitting?
Even though Sens. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) decided to soften the terms of their climate bill last week, the document may go down in history as one of the hardest-hitting gambits in the U.S. fight against global warming. In fact, easing the demands of the bill — which proposes a mandatory cap […]
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Cold, Hard Kashmir
Kashmir Gets an Amusement Park, but Enviros Are Not Amused The war-torn Indian province of Kashmir is hardly a place you’d go for amusement — but now, you can go there for an amusement park. That’s right: On Sunday, a private bank unveiled a brand-new amusement park in the town of Pahalgam in the Himalayan […]
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Dollars Without Sense
Privatizing Forest Service Jobs Would Cost More, Study Finds A Bush administration plan to privatize hundreds of U.S. Forest Service jobs, from wildlife biologists to safety officers, would cost taxpayers more than continuing to pay federal employees, a new agency study has found. Under the Bush plan, as many as one-fourth of all 40,000 USFS […]
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Can’t Get a Piece of the Rock
British Insurance Companies Would Not Cover Farmers Growing GM Crops The general public in the U.K. is deeply opposed to genetically modified crops, and now British farmers have yet another reason not to grow them: No one will insure them. A study by the agricultural organization Farm found that none of Britain’s five major insurance […]
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Nuclear Holler Costs
Nuclear Weapons Facilities Vulnerable to Terrorists, Whistleblower Says Nuclear weapons facilities in the United States are vulnerable to terrorist attacks, according to a whistleblower who recounts his tale to reporter (and Grist contributor) Mark Hertsgaard in the November issue of Vanity Fair. Until September 2001, federal employee Rich Levernier was in charge of coordinating simulated […]
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Working to develop the Volkswagen of solar homes
Just off I-75 in Tennessee, halfway between Knoxville and Chattanooga, past a Home Depot, a Ford dealership, a Krispy Kreme, and a Piggly Wiggly supermarket, there is a newly developed tract of low-income homes built by volunteers of Habitat for Humanity. A bright idea: the Indrajaya-Kinandjar solar house. At first glance, nothing about the development […]
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Live MTBE-Free or Die
New Hampshire Sues 22 Oil Companies Over MTBE Pollution In a first-of-its-kind move by a state, New Hampshire filed suit against 22 oil companies yesterday, blaming them for contaminating drinking water with the fuel additive MTBE. The companies added the chemical to their gasoline to make it burn more cleanly, but it has leached into […]
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Get on the Clean Bus, Gus
Washington State Cleans Up Its School Buses Washington state has launched an ambitious program to retrofit its diesel school buses with devices that curb pollution. Throughout the country, public health advocates and parents alike have grown concerned about school buses’ dirty emissions, which can contribute to a range of health problems, particularly in children, whose […]
