Articles by Grist staff

Could used chopsticks fuel a fire?

The whole point of alternative energy solutions is finding a fuel source that is already overly abundant and underused, and will continue to be ubiquitous for some time, right? In Japan, that fuel source is chopsticks.

More from W. Va.

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This week, Gabriel Pacyniak and Katherine Chandler are traveling throughout southern West Virginia to report on mountaintop removal mining (MTR). They'll be visiting coalfields with abandoned and "reclaimed" MTR mines, and talking with residents, activists, miners, mine company officials, local reporters, and politicians.

We'll publish their reports throughout the week.

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"This is what people around here don't understand, that this is forever," says Terry Steele, a former coal miner who has brought us up to a reclaimed mountaintop removal mine (MTR) site just above his home in Meador Hollow, West Virginia. "This mountain will never be like it was." The site has been reclaimed close to its original contour. That is, it's about the height it used to be, but now it's topped with pale rocky soil and anemic vegetation.

Scene from alongside the hollow road heading to an MTR site near Meador, W.Va. (photo: Katherine Chandler)

Bovines aren’t the only ones to blame

Thought cows were the only gassy animals belching up a climate change storm? Apparently the Scandinavian moose is also quite the methane machine: Norwegian newspapers, citing research from Norway’s technical university, said a motorist would have to drive [about 8,000 miles] in a car to emit as much CO2 as a moose does in a […]

Toying With Our Emotions

Bush administration may be complicit in lead-painted-toy debacle While China has endured a lot of criticism from the lead-painted-toy debacle, the Bush administration is not off the hook. Consumer advocates say the anti-regulation administration has hindered attempts to crack down on inspection of imported Chinese playthings; in addition, critics accuse the feds of encouraging the […]