Latest Articles
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Give Us a Hand
Pop Quiz For Daily Grist Readers: What’s important about today? That’s right — it’s the second-to-last day of the first-ever Grist fundraising drive. So far, it’s been a resounding success, and we’re hoping that those who haven’t yet given will dig deep and help us sprint to the finish. We know, we know; you were […]
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Haida Ho
In an unusual move, unhappy employees of paper giant Weyerhaeuser are siding with native inhabitants of British Columbia’s Queen Charlotte Islands, the Haida, in their legal battle against the company. Earlier this year, the Haida sued the company for control of the islands and their forests; on Monday, a reported 135 of 155 Weyerhaeuser employees […]
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Iguana Be Alone!
Eighteen months ago, a grounded tanker spilled 150,000 gallons of diesel and bunker fuel into the waters around the famed Galapagos Islands. Luckily, shifting winds sent most of the fuel out to sea rather than into shore, so sea lion and bird deaths numbered in the dozens rather than the hundreds. At the time, biologists […]
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Boxer Rebellion
President Bush scored a victory yesterday when the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved his plan to store highly radioactive nuclear waste beneath Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, but he was challenged by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle on other environmental issues. Reps. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) and Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) introduced legislation supported by […]
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Thumbs Down Under
Elsewhere in depressing but predictable climate change news, Australia rejected the Kyoto Protocol today, saying it would not ratify unless the U.S. did so as well, and unless developing nations were required to begin cutting their emissions. Taking a page from President Bush’s book, Prime Minister John Howard said that ratifying the protocol “would cost […]
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Barefoot but Not in Park
With gasoline selling for less than the price of a bottle of Evian and SUVs all the rage, fuel economy seems to have fallen off most Americans’ radar screens. But this is the U.S. of A., land of a million subcultures, and one of them is obsessed with the quest for ultra-fuel efficiency. While most […]
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Money Doesn’t Grow on Tree Huggers
Dang, Grist readers, y’all had such an amazingly generous response to yesterday’s fundraising plea that we thought we’d better do it again. So here goes: For those of you who were away from your email accounts Tuesday, the skinny is that there are just three days left to dig deep into your hearts and wallets […]
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Classless Dismissal
Seeking a comfortable position between environmentalists on the one hand and industry buddies on the other, President Bush let his administration release a report last week acknowledging for the first time that human-caused climate change would substantially change the U.S. environment — but then distanced himself from the report’s conclusions during a press conference yesterday. […]
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Who’s the Unfairest of Them All
A major gas field development in the Arctic Circle’s Barents Sea has won official approval from the European Free Trade Area, much to the dismay of environmentalists. Norway’s state-owned energy group Statoil is running the $5.8 billion project, which will be the first commercial exploration of fossil fuel in the region and Europe’s first offshore […]
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Umbra on hybrid cars
Umbra, hi, With Honda having just released its gas-electric hybrid Civic in the U.S., many enviros are scrambling to buy one. But one question that hasn’t been answered to my knowledge is whether the total amount of energy, pollution, mining, etc. involved in making a new car — even a hybrid — constitutes a greater […]