Articles by Grist staff

A photo journey to the far reaches of Peru

In a collection of photos, Gary Braasch takes us on a visit to Peru’s rivers, mountains, ancient temples, and young faces — the country’s true gems. Photos: © Gary Braasch   Peru is dominated by two features that are, to most outsiders, the stuff of legend: the Amazon and the Andes. The lush forests and […]

Universities up their organic offerings

At about this time yesterday, students filling up their trays at the U.C. Berkeley salad bar realized something was missing: the carcinogens.

On Monday, the Cal campus debuted an organic salad bar at one of the student dining facilities. Though many schools are offering organic options these days, Berkeley is the first in the nation to have an officially certified organic salad bar, complete with separate prep facilities -- so as to save the organic shreds of lettuce from the indignity of mingling with the non-organic variety, of course.

And students are noticing the difference. Said one 19-year-old sophomore, "It's not just that it tasted different, but it felt different. It seemed more like lettuce, I guess." Dude ... deep.

Meanwhile, in a much colder and less, uh, surfer-dude-populated area of the country, the U. of Wisconsin-Madison became the latest collegiate body to join the Humane Society's campaign against factory farms. Along with more than 80 other schools, UW-Madison's Food Services has agreed to the "near-exclusive" use of organic, cage-free (or "cruelty free") eggs, improving the lives of some 3,000 egg-laying hens.

Some universities are doing even more to push organic -- they're educating future organic farmers:

Obama Hiccups; Grist Rushes to Transcribe

Obama slams Bush admin for inaction on America’s oil addiction Sen. Barack Obama, progressive golden boy, rebuked the Bush administration yesterday for being all talk, no walk on curbing oil use. When President Bush said America is addicted to oil, “I was among the hopeful,” said the Illinois Democrat. “But then I saw the plan.” […]

We’ve Got Poll, and We’re Super Bad

Polls find Americans worried about energy and climate problems To paraphrase Benjamin Disraeli, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and poll results. So take the following factoids from three recent polls with a big block o’ salt. An Environmental Defense survey found that 71 percent of Americans think global warming is real […]