Articles by Grist staff

Terry Tamminen and Stewart J. Hudson tell Bush how to make his climate meeting a success

The following is a guest post from Terry Tamminen and Stewart J. Hudson. Tamminen is the Cullman Senior Climate Policy Fellow at the New America Foundation. His latest book is Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction. Hudson is president of the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and co-chair of the U.S. Climate and Energy Funders Group.

Preparations for President Bush's Sept. 27-28 summit of world leaders on climate change are underway and will determine how the president sets the tone for this historic meeting. He can restore American leadership by calling for mandatory reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, or he can shoot for the lowest common denominator as a means of sticking with the status quo.

"Science has deepened our understanding of climate change and opened new possibilities for confronting it," the president said recently. In keeping with this new perspective, there are three steps he could take now to make this summit a success.

DOT officials lobbied against California’s vehicle-emission standards, Waxman says

According to Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the Bush administration has been quietly lobbying members of Congress and state governors to oppose California’s strict greenhouse-gas emissions rules for cars. In December 2005, the state submitted a request to the U.S. EPA for a waiver it needs to […]

U.N. hosts one-day climate meeting to spur climate-agreement fever

Gathering momentum for a United Nations climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, in December where the successor to the Kyoto Protocol is expected to be born, the U.N. hosted a one-day climate conference at its headquarters in New York on Monday. The conference attracted 150 nations, about 80 of which sent at least their heads of […]

Thanksgiving isn’t just about the food; it is about relationships

The Thanksgiving holiday serves to focus our attention on man's relationship with nature. In a celebration of the fall harvest, we express our appreciation for the bounty we have received.

In American tradition, the Pilgrims' survival in the New World was enabled by the Native Americans, with whom they joined in a great feast of thanks. Every year Americans set aside a day to hold their own feast of Thanksgiving which features traditional foods that are native to the Americas, such as, turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, corn, turnips, and pumpkin pie.

Our celebration of Thanksgiving is the perfect opportunity to reinforce our connection, not only with the earth which still provides us with such a bounty but also the members of our community who have made raising these foods their life's work. While opening a can of yams, defrosting a frozen industrial turkey and buying a boxed pumpkin pie may have meaning in continuing some parts of the Thanksgiving tradition, I suggest we celebrate our relationship with the present as well as the past by making an extra effort to eat as many of these traditional foods from local, humanely raised sources as possible. Here in the Northeast that is pretty easy for most of the meal, but what about the turkey?