Articles by Grist staff

EPA plans to loosen air-quality rules near national parks

Photo: Wolfgang Staudt Call us crazy, but rewriting the Clean Air Act to ease the way for new coal plants near national parks seems to fly in the face of that whole “clean air” thing. But sure enough, the U.S. EPA plans to make a change allowing the government to calculate the average annual emissions […]

Congress finally passes veto-proof farm bill

Defying President Bush’s veto threat, the Senate joined the House Thursday in voting “yay” on the $289 billion omnibus legislation that covers everything from farm subsidies to food stamps. In both chambers, support for the bill tallied strong enough to override Bush’s threatened veto. The legislation has bitterly divided the sustainable-agriculture world. Supporters acknowledge the […]

Snippets from the news

• Friday is Bike to Work Day! • T. Boone Pickens buys 667 wind turbines. • Starbucks sets green goals. • China earthquake may cut carbon-offset supply. • Global biodiversity is plummeting.

U. of Washington to create big eco-college

The University of Washington is planning to create the largest environmental college evah. The proposed College of the Environment would become the 5th-largest of U-Dub’s 17 colleges, combining its current schools of forestry, fishery sciences, atmospheric sciences, earth and space sciences, marine affairs, and oceanography. “Certainly, higher education in general has a responsibility to tackle […]