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| Headline |
Author |
Published |
Section |
The Daley show
Hot plans rile the Chicago waterfront |
Katharine Wroth |
13 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Two curious things going on along the waterfront in Chicago, which Mayor Richard Daley envisions as the 'greenest city in America': a brouhaha over plans to relocate the children's museum to Grant Park, and a billion-dollar dream of a semicircular Eco-Bridge in the same area. A mock-up of the Eco-Bridge. Photo: Chicago Tribune. The $100 million museum plan was handily passed yesterday by the city council in what sounds like a stereotypical example of ... |
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| Topics: Chicago, local politics, placemaking, urban planning (all these topics) |
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Garden variety
Why mow the grass when you can harvest salad greens? |
Tom Philpott |
06 Jun 2008 |
Gristmill |
| Lawn grass is the largest irrigated U.S. crop. 'Even conservatively,' notes NASA researcher Cristina Milesi, 'I estimate there are three times more acres of lawns in the U.S. than irrigated corn.' Wow, that's a lot of ornamental grass -- about 128,000 square kilometers worth, roughly equal in size to the state of Wisconsin. According Milesi, keeping all of that grass green requires about 200 gallons of fresh, typically drinking-quality water per person per day. (Inter ... |
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| Topics: Chicago, food, gardening, local food (all these topics) |
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Duck!
Chicago overturns 2-year old ordinance banning foie gras |
Kurt Michael Friese |
15 May 2008 |
Gristmill |
| In The New York Times Dining section yesterday, I read this:Chicagoans can feast on foie gras once more. The Chicago City Council just repealed the ban on its sale that it put in place two years ago.Now I know that many of my vegan friends will go ballistic on me when I say that this is a good thing, but this is a good thing. The animal rights groups who supported this measure did so because they saw it as a layup -- an easy target. Who would oppose a ban on some ... |
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| Topics: food, vegetarianism and veganism, Chicago (all these topics) |
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Hard to Swallow
Chicago will levy bottled-water tax, Big Bottle plans to sue |
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27 Dec 2007 |
News |
| Posted at 12:04 PM on 27 Dec 2007 Beginning Jan. 1, Chicago will levy a 5-cent tax on bottled water; shortly after it goes into effect, an alliance of food and beverage retailer associations plans to sue. From the Archives Mamma Mia! Italian village first host to outbreak of spreading tropical disease. Those Dental Bills Will Kill You. Health officials concerned about mercury pollution from cre ... |
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| Topics: business, Chicago, food, litigation, news, water conflicts (all these topics) |
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The Only Thing We Have to Sears Is Sears Itself
Clinton, Daley to green Sears Tower, other Chicago landmarks |
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08 Nov 2007 |
News |
| Posted at 8:42 AM on 08 Nov 2007 The tallest building in North America is officially going green, along with a few of its Windy City counterparts. At a green building expo in Chicago yesterday, former President Bill Clinton and eterna-Mayor Richard Daley announced a partnership to retrofit landmarks including the Sears Tower and the Merchandise Mart, the nation's largest commercial cente ... |
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| Topics: Chicago, climate, energy, green building, placemaking (all these topics) |
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'The ABCs of rainforest destruction'
Raising a ruckus about agrofuels at the Chicago Board of Trade |
Tom Philpott |
11 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| From the The Chicago Tribune: Police this morning arrested five people who scaled the Chicago Board of Trade building in the Loop and unfurled a banner to protest the destruction of the world's rain forests. The demonstrators, members of the Rainforest Action Network ... displayed a 50-foot banner protesting three U.S. agriculture companies. The protest was part of a campaign to "halt agribusiness expansion in the rain forests of South America, Southeast Asia an ... |
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| Topics: agriculture, business, Chicago, grassroots activism, industrial ag (all these topics) |
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Bottled Rage
Anti-bottled-water campaign kicks off in cities across U.S. |
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10 Oct 2007 |
News |
| Posted at 4:51 PM on 10 Oct 2007 A Think Outside the Bottle campaign kicked off today, urging municipal governments to cut off bottled-water contracts and to press for greater disclosure of the source of bottled H2O. The campaign is spearheaded by Corporate Accountability International and joined by cities including Boston, Minneapolis, Sacramento, and Portland, Ore., many of which held taste tests today to see if consumer ... |
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| Topics: Boston, Chicago, food, news, Portland, water conflicts (all these topics) |
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Marathon meltdown
A first-hand view from Chicago's overheated marathon |
Grist |
09 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Photo: sterno74 Chicago's annual marathon was shut down early on Sunday due to oppressive heat and humidity, which led to dozens of hospitalizations. Grister Sarah Hardin was on the scene and offers this first-hand report: ----- It's become a tradition for my geographically widespread family to converge on Chicago in October for the city's annual marathon. We've been volunteering at the marathon ever since my cousin married the operations m ... |
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| Topics: severe weather, Chicago, sports (all these topics) |
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Victory, with a catch
BP promises to stop dumping waste into the Great Lakes |
Jon Rynn |
24 Aug 2007 |
Gristmill |
| On July 15, the Chicago Tribune reported that BP wanted to significantly increase the discharge of ammonia and toxic wastes into the Great Lakes. The outcry was enormous -- even Republican congressmen from the area joined in the criticism, and several powerful congressional members, including Rahm Emanuel in the House and Barack Obama in the Senate, threatened hearings. The city of Chicago was considering legal action, and a large petition drive began. Apparently the pol ... |
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| Topics: business, Chicago, energy, George Bush, Indiana, oil, waste, water pollution (all these topics) |
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Back to Mystery Meat
Organic-lunch project pulled out of Chicago elementary school |
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20 Aug 2007 |
Daily Grist |
| Back to Mystery Meat Organic-lunch project pulled out of Chicago elementary school A school-lunch chef has pulled his Organic School Project out of a Chicago elementary school after district officials balked at his plans to expand the program to more schools. The first and only organic meal program in the nation's third-largest school district had also provided Alcott Elementary with a pesticide-free garden, wellness classes, a ... |
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| Topics: Chicago, news, organic food (all these topics) |
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Chicago-style Mad Flavor: I heart Lula
In which the author finds his dream neighorhood restaurant |
Tom Philpott |
16 Aug 2007 |
Gristmill |
| In Mad Flavor, the author describes his occasional forays from the farm in search of exceptional culinary experiences from small artisanal producers. Recently, Mad Flavor was on the ground in Chicago -- the author's ancestral home city -- a veritable garden of delightful food. I've long dreamed of a very particular neighborhood cafe/restaurant. It would lie in the middle of a dense urban neighborhood, looking onto the chaos of the sidewalk. It would be open from ... |
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| Topics: Chicago, food, placemaking (all these topics) |
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Hi from YearlyKos
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David Roberts |
03 Aug 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Got in last night -- had a wonderful dinner at Green Zebra (a runner up on our list of green restaurants). Now I'm in the convention center, listening to Steve Clemons and Peter Beinart talk about progressive foreign policy. I've never seen so many laptops in one room. It's a little maddening to be out of the news loop right now, with the Lieberman-Warner bill having been rolled out and the House energy bill getting hashed out. How's that stuff going? Y'all tell me. ... |
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| Topics: Chicago (all these topics) |
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Spaghetti Midwestern
Citizens, politicians, EPA face off over BP refinery discharges |
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01 Aug 2007 |
Daily Grist |
| Spaghetti Midwestern Citizens, politicians, EPA face off over BP refinery discharges Good old-fashioned fury continues to build over Indiana's decision to grant oil giant BP permission to increase discharges of ammonia and sludge into Lake Michigan. A group of eight shoreline mayors has formed a task force to fight the plan. Tens of thousands of residents have signed petiti ... |
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| Topics: Big Oil, Chicago, grassroots activism, insanity, news, US EPA, water pollution (all these topics) |
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Grist goes to Yearly Kos
Come catch the hotness! |
David Roberts |
01 Aug 2007 |
Gristmill |
| As you may or may not know, this weekend the progressive website Daily Kos is holding its annual convention -- YearlyKos -- in Chicago. According to noted advocate of moderation and compassion Bill O'Reilly, Daily Kos -- which has over 50,000 registered members and on the order of 600,000 visits a day -- is a hate site that's all but indistinguishable from Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, Mussolini, and David Duke. (Much more here.) Sounds like it should be a good party ... |
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| Topics: Chicago, shameless self-promotion, websites (all these topics) |
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BP means 'bad pollution' for the Great Lakes
It's easy being not green |
Jon Rynn |
20 Jul 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Sleeping Bear Dunes, Lake Michigan. In an effort to keep expanding the flow of oil, companies such as BP have been trying to extract oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, which is like trying to drink coffee after you've dumped it into sand. The process is so energy-intensive that there is talk of putting the world's largest nuclear power plant on top of the tar sands in order to heat them up enough to use them, and lakes of toxic water have been created t ... |
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| Topics: business, Chicago, oil, toxics, waste, water pollution (all these topics) |
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15 Green Cities
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19 Jul 2007 |
Main Dish |
| These metropolises aren't literally the greenest places on earth -- they're not necessarily dense with foliage, for one, and some still have a long way to go down the path to sustainability. But all of the cities on this list deserve recognition for making impressive strides toward eco-friendliness, helping their many millions of residents live better, greener lives. If your favorite green city didn't make the list, tell us why it deserves recognition in the comment ... |
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| Topics: Chicago, lists, London, placemaking, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, urban planning, Vancouver (all these topics) |
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Music to Our Ears
Music festivals across the country aim to lessen their footprint |
Sarah van Schagen |
03 Jul 2007 |
Arts and Minds |
| Bonnaroo 2006. Photo: Sarah van Schagen. I'm sitting in the middle of a field in rural Tennessee, and it feels like it's got to be 110 degrees out. Somehow I've forgotten about my sweat-lined brow and muddy shoes; instead, I'm focused on listening to Bonnaroo's head press guy, Ken Weinstein of Big Hassle Media, talk about the music festival's ongoing efforts to put on a greener ... |
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| Topics: Bonnaroo, Chicago, green living, music, Seattle (all these topics) |
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Lists
A couple |
David Roberts |
18 Apr 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Here are two lists, for those of you into that kind of thing: First, Sustainlane -- which seems to produce a list every few weeks, no? -- has a list of the Top Ten Cities for Renewable Energy. That's the cities that provide citizens with the most green power. They are: 1. Oakland, CA 2. Sacramento/SF/San Jose, CA (tie) 3. Portland, OR 4. Boston, MA 5. San Diego, CA 6. Austin, TX 7. Los Angeles, CA 8. Minneapolis, MN 9. Seattle, WA 10. Chicago, IL Oaklan ... |
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| Topics: cars, Chicago, energy, green living, placemaking, Portland, renewable energy, San Francisco, Seattle (all these topics) |
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'Hood Intentions
LEED is expanding to neighborhoods, and Doug Farr is leading the way |
Charles Shaw |
12 Oct 2006 |
Main Dish |
| Doug Farr was heading into The Grind, a local fair-trade coffee spot in Chicago's swanky Lincoln Square neighborhood, when he ran into Peter Nicholson, the organizer of the city's monthly Green Drinks. The two well-heeled unofficial flag-wavers for the local green scene exchanged enthusiastic greetings, and began discussing the latest goings-on. Doug Farr. "Ugh. I'm really over ... |
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| Topics: Chicago, consumerism, green living, greening biz operations, innovation, placemaking, politics, United States (all these topics) |
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Green Bean counting
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Payton Chung |
14 Aug 2006 |
Gristmill |
| Chicago, like several other cities, has a Green Permit Program (PDF) that grants faster building permits for green buildings. Erik Olsen, the program's administrator, gets to scrutinize every single green building in the entire city. Luckily for us, Erik recently started GreenBean, a blog profiling the blueprints that cross his desk.So far, he's posted eight building profiles, including two single-family houses (both in my neighborhood -- must be my aura), high-rise off ... |
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| Topics: Chicago (all these topics) |
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Where does your gas come from?
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Payton Chung |
31 Jul 2006 |
Gristmill |
| Chicago Tribune reporter Paul Salopek spent the last year on 'an energy safari,' working backwards from the customers and night-shift clerks at a single Marathon gas station in exurban Chicago (and the downstate refinery that supplies it) to the exact fields where the oil first left the ground. Last September, for instance, 71% of its gas came from the U.S., 20% from Africa, and 10% from Saudi Arabia.The eight stories and related multimedia (photos from Iraq, Louisiana, ... |
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| Topics: Chicago (all these topics) |
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NY Times headlines Chicago as "green business"
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Payton Chung |
21 Jun 2006 |
Gristmill |
| This Sunday, The New York Times ran a package of Business articles focused on 'The Business of Green.' (If previous packages are any indication, the links will remain active longer than the standard week.) Hearteningly for this Second City resident, Keith Schneider's banner headline -- To Revitalize a City, Try Spreading Some Mulch -- spotlights Mayor Richard M. Daley's efforts to improve the city's quality of life through greening initiatives. While many local wags ... |
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| Topics: Chicago (all these topics) |
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Cities are cool
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Clark Williams-Derry |
03 May 2006 |
Gristmill |
| Cool images from the Center for Neighborhood Technology show that people who live in dense urban areas -- downtown San Francisco, the denser parts of L.A., or the Chicago city core -- emit less CO2 for transportation. See for yourself:I'm showing San Francisco above because it's closest to my heart, but I think the Chicago map is coolest.The simple explanation for the pattern is that people who live in denser neighborhoods -- places where stores, services, and j ... |
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| Topics: Chicago, San Francisco (all these topics) |
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Edens Lost & Found
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David Roberts |
07 Apr 2006 |
Gristmill |
| Check out Edens Lost & Found, a four-part PBS series (and book, and newsletter, and curriculum) about how four cities -- Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Seattle -- are working to transform urban environments to integrate nature and improve quality of life. Apparently the first two episodes have already aired; Los Angeles and Seattle are coming up this Spring. Sounds interesting. Check your local listings. |
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| Topics: Chicago, Seattle (all these topics) |
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New American dream towns
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David Roberts |
27 Dec 2005 |
Gristmill |
| Outside magazine has a list of 10 "New American Dream Towns." When we combed the country for the sweetest innovations and the freshest ideas for making neighborhoods better places to live, work, and play -- with tons of green space, easy access to the outdoors, and big-think visions for smarter, more sustainable everyday living -- we hit the jackpot. ... To spotlight the new American dream towns, we started with a wish list of criteria: commitment ... |
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| Topics: Chicago, Portland (all these topics) |
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