Latest Articles

Calling in the Reserves

The debate over oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been in the limelight a lot lately — but what about energy exploitation in the rest of the state? On Friday, the Bush administration released a report on the likely environmental impact of new drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve, an […]

Succulent Temptations

In an effort to conserve water, landscapers in Arizona have turned to the wild cacti of West Texas for decoration, creating an unsustainable demand that could imperil some species. According to a new report from the World Wildlife Fund, agaves and yuccas are being harvested from the Chihuahua Desert to feed a demand for drought-tolerant […]

The Air Up There

Air pollution may be to blame for lower birth weights and smaller skulls in African-American babies born in Upper Manhattan and the South Bronx, according to a study on childhood asthma to be published next month in Environmental Health Perspectives. The study, which was conducted by researchers from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, […]

And other words from readers

  Re: This Is Your Brain on SUVs Dear Editor: I think all these anti-SUV ads are great at educating the public on the environmental atrocities of these gas-guzzling vehicles, but I question their overall effectiveness. They may prevent a small number of people from buying SUVs and make some current SUV owners feel guilty, […]

The MLK of Human Kindness

Daily Grist won’t be published on Monday, Martin Luther King, Jr., Day. See you on Tuesday.

The Truck Stops There

In a setback for the Bush administration, a federal appeals court yesterday halted a federal plan to permit thousands of Mexican trucks on U.S. roads, calling instead for environmental reviews that could take up to three years. In November, President Bush approved the entry of 30,000 Mexican trucks per year, citing obligations under the North […]

Climate Every Mountain

Move over, NASDAQ. Watch out, NYSE. Here comes the Chicago Climate Exchange, the nation’s first greenhouse-gas trading program. Announced yesterday by a coalition of corporations and government entities including DuPont, Ford Motor Company, Motorola, and the city of Chicago, the exchange will permit companies to reduce (on paper, at least) their emissions of carbon dioxide […]

Basin and Strange

Since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has claimed that strict environmental laws are hindering oil and gas exploration in the West — thereby compromising national security by forcing ongoing dependence on foreign energy sources. But a new federal study undermines that claim by showing that most oil and gas reserves on Western federal lands could […]

Umbra on student activism

Dear Umbra, I may be asking the wrong person, but I hope you can help out. I am a student at the University of North Carolina and my group, the Student Environmental Action Coalition, is undertaking an ambitious campaign to raise student fees by $4 per semester in order to bring renewable energy to our […]

Umbra on mercury in compact fluorescent lights

Dear Umbra, Here in Texas, where it is very hot in the summer (granted, we deserve to be in hell for having produced George Bush), some of us have been enthusiastically switching our light bulbs to cooler compact fluorescents. Is this a bad thing due to the mercury they contain? Lisa Smithville, Texas Dearest Lisa, […]