Culture

Robert Cluck: Texas doctor, Republican mayor, clean-air champ

Deceptively clear skies over Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.Courtesy jacorbett70 via FlickrPhysician Robert Cluck spends his mornings working at Arlington Memorial Hospital and his afternoons as mayor of Arlington, Texas, a city of 375,000 that has one of the worst ozone problems in the country. Seeing children with asthma in the emergency room has led him […]

Jonathan Hiskes Culture

Chicken expert Gail Damerow answers newbie questions

Cluck, cluck, cluck. Bwaak! These are not sounds I expect to hear on a stroll in my North Oakland, Calif. neighborhood — the usual soundtrack is more like thumping bass, sirens, and the rattle of fast-food paper bags. And yet chickens are pecking in backyards on practically every block, in converted sheds and rickety but […]

Bonnie Azab Powell Culture

Passaic riverkeeper sees signs of hope despite the slow pace of cleanup

Andy Willner, activist and advocate of the Passaic.Photo courtesy of al-ICE g via FlickrOn Jan. 2, 1990, a leaking pipeline at Bayonne, New Jersey’s Exxon Bayway oil refinery sent 567,000 gallons of heating fuel into the surrounding waterways and marsh. Andy Willner volunteered to help the affected wildlife. He wound up collecting a truckload of […]

Mary Bruno Culture

There’s no plane like home for this Malibu abode

The architect must be having a mayday, er, heyday with this house.Considering the jumbo-jet-sized carbon emissions of air travel, it’s plane to see that the greenest place for an airplane is on the ground. Preferably before it’s flown millions of passengers around the world, but if the plane has already gone that route, why not […]

Ashley Braun Culture

Live chat with Tom Philpott and Jonathan Hiskes

Editor’s note: The chat’s now over, but you can replay it in full. Yo Grist faithful, Food Editor Tom Philpott and Staff Writer Jonathan Hiskes are joining forces for a live chat about where the Gulf oil spill is creeping — politically and ecologically — and how it connects to the clean-energy future. Join us […]

Grist staff Culture

The new American can’t-do spirit

Can we change our ways? Ditch the cars and move towards a greener approach to transportation.Photo courtesy of leelefever via flickr Cross-posted from New Deal 2.0. Americans have always been known to have a “can-do” spirit. During the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration tried out many different programs to confront the Great Depression and to spread […]

Jon Rynn Culture

Is drunk biking better than drunk driving?

Courtesy blurofinsanity.comEric DePlace at the Northwest policy shop Sightline responds to my question about why we mandate parking at bars if driving in general and drunk driving in particular both harm the public good: One thing that does work as an alternative to drinking and driving — and I can vouch for this — is […]

Jonathan Hiskes Culture

What have environmentalists been most wrong about?

Photo: limonada via FlickrFirst things first: Don’t ask me how I went from being an editor of Grist to an expert in wrongness. It’s a long story. Suffice it to say that in 2006, I left Grist (with much regret) in order to write a book about being wrong. (That’s the eponymous Being Wrong: Adventures […]

Kathryn Schulz Culture

USDA recalls 96,000 tons of beef … from one family

Yes, it’s a video from the Onion, and one of its finest. But with burger-grilling season heating up, and bacteria-friendly temperatures rising across the nation, it’s worth taking the meat of the video’s message with a grain of salt. (Gagging from my puns yet?) If you can find beef at your local farmers market, you’ll […]