Grist | Topics | 175 Results

RESULTS		Results 26 – 50 of 175
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
Different Beasts On organic vs. natural foods	Umbra Fisk	31 Mar 2008	Ask Umbra
Dear Umbra, I'm trying to convince my sister that there is a difference between all-natural and organic products, and she doesn't think there is. I'm pretty sure there is a difference, I just don't know what it is. I look at the ingredients of some of the food she buys that she says are "natural" and I wonder how these products are able to claim that! What are the qualifications for something to be labeled all-natu ...
Topics: advice, Ask Umbra, consumerism, food, green living, green products, organic food, shopping (all these topics)

Breaking polar bear news Plush toys recalled due to fire hazard	Sarah van Schagen	29 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Polar bears soon to be extinct due to risk of overheating!
Topics: consumerism, funnies, green living, shopping (all these topics)

A Spend in Need Americans want to spend on green, but can't figure out how, says study		26 Mar 2008	News
Posted at 1:29 PM on 26 Mar 2008 Americans are primed to spend up to $104 billion on "green" technologies this year -- but don't know where to find them, says a new study. Which seems crazy, considering the plethora of green-shopping websites and companies joining in on the "green revolution," but what do we know? According to the survey conducted by Rockbridge Associates, some half of the ...
Topics: business, consumerism, news, shopping, tech (all these topics)

Give it away, now Interesting research findings on wealth and happiness	Clark Williams-Derry	24 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Photo: sean-b via Flickr University of British Columbia researchers have put a price tag on happiness. The good news: It's available for the low price of $5. The better news: You can't spend that money on yourself. Instead, to get the most smiles per dollar, you have to spend money on other people. Dr. Elizabeth Dunn at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and colleagues found that [experimental subjects] report significantly greater h ...
Topics: business, consumerism, scientific research (all these topics)

Latest hot commodity: coal As coal prices rise, U.S. coal exports boom	Tom Philpott	21 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Environmentalists have helped scuttle more than 50 coal-fired power plants in the U.S. in the past year. That's fantastic. But the movement to stop coal won't help the climate unless it can globalize; for the climate, coal burned in China traps just as much warmth as coal burned in Texas. Nor will stopping more U.S. coal-fired power plants help save communities in the mining zones of Appalachia from environmental and economic devastation. That's because U.S. coal ...
Topics: business, coal, consumerism, energy, international politics (all these topics)

Collared Greens How to green your pet		18 Mar 2008	From A to Green
Can man's best friend be a friend to the planet, too? Photo: iStockphoto Without pets, the world would be such a pale, less playful version of itself. No Wallace and Gromit videos. No Fluffy purring in our laps or Fido fetching his Frisbee. No cheerful creatures welcoming us home and adoring us unconditionally. (OK, we'd still have mom.) So we love them, there's no getting around it. But can we lighten the eco-pawprint of our pets? Why yes, w ...
Topics: advice, animal welfare, consumerism, From A to Green, green living (all these topics)

Fighting Dirty An interview with the founders of Method green home-care products	Sarah van Schagen	14 Mar 2008	Grist Feature
After spending a few minutes with Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan, I began to wonder if they weren't part of a modern-day adaptation of The Odd Couple. The 30-something founders of the Method line of home-care products, friends since high school, are about as different as two business partners could be. Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry. Lowry (Method's "chief greens keeper") is tall and l ...
Topics: art, business, consumerism, green cleaning, green living, green products, innovation, interview (all these topics)

Prices aren't the only things being dropped Wal-Mart discontinues selling green PC in stores	Jerome Woody	12 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Remember the gPC? It's Everex's $199 'green' Linux computer, the one Wal-Mart stocked up on during the last holiday season. Well, it seems the 'experiment' is over, with an unsatisfied Wal-Mart putting those famous price-cutting scissors on their plan to sell the cheap PC in their stores. According to the AP, Wal-Mart concluded that their middle-American consumer base was not hip to the gPC's Linux-based operating system. However, seeing the appeal of the computer to ...
Topics: consumerism, green living, green products, tech, Wal-Mart (all these topics)

The Company He Keeps An interview with eco-certification expert Michael Conroy	Katharine Wroth	07 Mar 2008	Grist Feature
Michael Conroy. Photo: Chris Conroy Photography As a shopper, you can't turn around without running into some type of green label, from Fair Trade to FSC-certified. But what do they all mean, and where the hell did they even come from? Economist Michael Conroy digs into the history behind these increasingly common labels in his book Branded!: How the 'Certification Revolution' Is Transfo ...
Topics: books, business, consumerism, green products, greening biz operations, interview, shopping, Wal-Mart (all these topics)

Brit's Eye View: Young, gifted, and green? New survey of U.K. youth reveals mixed attitudes about the future of the planet	Ben Tuxworth	05 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Ben Tuxworth, communications director at Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe. Debates about how we should save the planet tend to explore the impossibility of almost every approach until someone says, 'We need to change the education system,' at which point it is deemed churlish to snigger. Catch 'em young, and it's job done seems to be the hope. Well, with only 100 months of planet-saving time left, ac ...
Topics: business, climate, climate change impacts, consumerism, green living, United Kingdom (all these topics)

The wheel turns against gasoline Americans reduce gas consumption as prices continue to rise	Kit Stolz	04 Mar 2008	Gristmill
Shocked by high gas prices? You're not alone: according to the lead story in today's Los Angeles Times, prices are at a record high. The gravity-defying price of oil shot through another barrier Monday by briefly touching $103.95 a barrel in New York trading, the highest cost ever for black gold even after adjusting for inflation. But the experts say it's not so much a rise in demand that is pushing up the cost, but a fall in the value of the dollar. 'I d ...
Topics: consumerism, energy, gas prices, oil (all these topics)

Vicious life cycles Can we trust carbon labeling?	Clark Williams-Derry	03 Mar 2008	Gristmill
About a year ago, I was cautiously bullish on British supermarket giant Tesco's pledge to start putting carbon labels on its food. But I think that their progress so far -- which I'll get to in a minute -- suggests an important lesson about the policy risks of treating a fuzzy exercise as if it were completely reliable. Tesco's idea was that the chain and its suppliers would pay for objective, comprehensive reviews of the greenhouse-gas emissions from th ...
Topics: business, consumerism, shopping, energy, climate (all these topics)

Of Vice and Men Grist puts a green eye to sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll	Sarah van Schagen	22 Feb 2008	Grist Feature
Photo: iStockphoto "Sex and drugs and rock and roll are very good indeed." -- Ian Dury Green may be the flavor of the week, the word du jour, the go-to adjective for everyone from ad execs to activists -- but between you and me, researching all the do's and don'ts of eco-sainthood can get a bit heavy. In the midst of all this sobering work, sometimes a gal (even a green one) just w ...
Topics: advice, consumerism, funnies, green living, music, sex (all these topics)

Blood and chocolate Fortune mag: widespread poverty and child labor in the cocoa-producing world	Tom Philpott	19 Feb 2008	Gristmill
While I was waxing euphoric last week about Fair Trade and ultra-fancy chocolate ahead of Valentine's Day, interesting things were happening in the chocolate world.Regulators in Germany raided the offices of seven corporate chocolate makers -- including Nestle, Kraft, and Mars -- investigating allegations of price fixing. Six food conglomerates process half of the world's cocoa, giving them tremendous leverage on price. Usually, they use their market power to squeeze fa ...
Topics: agriculture, consumerism, food, green living (all these topics)

Letter to the editor: forest certification Kathy Abusow of Sustainable Forestry Initiative responds to Grist's green-buying tips	Grist	12 Feb 2008	Gristmill
Here is a letter to the editor from Kathy Abusow of Sustainable Forestry Initiative, Inc., written in response to our article featuring tips for buying green products and avoiding greenwashed ones. ----- Dear Editor: I am writing in response to an article that your website ran titled 'Is It Really Green?' It was disappointing to read your statement about the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Standard� (SFI�). The fact is, SFI is an independent nonprofit organization and ...
Topics: consumerism, deforestation, green living, greenwashing, logging (all these topics)

Sell Abrasions On green-company buyouts	Umbra Fisk	06 Feb 2008	Ask Umbra
Dear Umbra, So glad you were ransomed. (I happily did my bit.) I'm worried that the gentle-on-the-environment start-ups are taking the money and running. First our favorite toothpaste, Tom's of Maine, sold out to Colgate (I think) and now Burt's Bees has become a product line acquired by a bleach company. Where do we turn for sparkling teeth and rosy cheeks? Irene Eatonville, Wash. Dearest Irene, May I split a few awapuhi-softe ...
Topics: advice, Ask Umbra, business, consumerism, greenish companies, shopping (all these topics)

Deep thought of the day If people want to keep up with the Joneses, could they at least adopt a different set of Joneses?	David Roberts	29 Jan 2008	Gristmill
Social scientists tell us that having more material goods doesn't make us happier, but that we buy them in order to retain parity with our social group. It is very difficult to resist this urge to keep up with the Joneses. It is, however, possible to voluntarily adopt a different set of Joneses with a lower standard of material wealth, in order to create a social context in which its easier for us to restrain our material consumption.
Topics: consumerism (all these topics)

Is It Really Green? Advice for navigating the wild world of products with eco-claims		28 Jan 2008	Grist Feature
Laundry detergent made from flowers! Cars that don't pollute! Potato chips fried in organic oils! These days, everything seems to be marketed with an eco-spin -- even products that are notoriously bad for people and the planet. So are companies truly seeing the green light, or are they just greenwashing? Photo: iStockphoto If green is the new black, then greenwashing -- the practice of putting an eco ...
Topics: consumerism, green cleaning, green living, green products, shopping (all these topics)

Ten ways to spend your tax rebate Put your economic stimulus stipend to green use	Sarah van Schagen	28 Jan 2008	Gristmill
Photo: iStockphoto Psyched about the $300-$600 you may be receiving but worried about what it really means for the state of our economy how you'll be able to spend it all? Never fear: I've crunched some numbers and put together this list of 10 ways to spend your gov-given green. 1 down payment on a Tango electric car. 1.5 bicycles. 4.5 solar chargers. 11.25 bottles of organic vodka. 15 pairs of green knickers. 29 Inconvenient Truth DV ...
Topics: consumerism, green living (all these topics)

Moving on out There are limits to the positive environmental change we can expect from high gas prices	Ryan Avent	22 Jan 2008	Gristmill
You can scarcely pick up a paper or turn on the television these days without hearing the word recession. Leading economic indicators have wiggled in different directions over the past few months, but the general trend appears to be negative. The conventional wisdom points toward an economic downturn of some kind during 2008, and businesses in all sorts of consumer markets are bracing for the inevitable tightening of purse strings. A funny thing happened on the way tow ...
Topics: consumerism, economy, energy, gas prices, oil, placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

No, there need not be a way The privileged attitude of the motorhead	JMG	20 Jan 2008	Gristmill
A Washington Post columnist: I'm not making an ideological argument here or manufacturing an excuse for American super-consumers, with our Hummers and McMansions. I'm not offering a proper answer to the puzzle proffered above either, unfortunately, but just stating the rarely acknowledged facts: Probably there should be an emissions-free car available for $2,500 (or an organic granola bar for 52 cents), but, at the moment, there isn't. There must be a way to reconcile mass car ...
Topics: cars, climate, consumerism, energy (all these topics)

Absolut greenwashing? Vodka maker launches global cooling campaign	Sarah van Schagen	18 Jan 2008	Gristmill
In a partnership with Live Earth (yes, they're still doing stuff), Absolut Vodka has launched a Global Cooling campaign that "encourages consumers to reduce the effects of global warming by offering simple steps they can implement in their daily lives." As part of the campaign, Absolut is sponsoring the Live Earth Film Series, a collection of short films that will make the rounds at various film festivals this year -- starting with Sundance ...
Topics: green living, greenwashing, climate, consumerism, food, business (all these topics)

Assault and battery Chinese workers pay for our cadmium-battery habit	Tom Philpott	16 Jan 2008	Gristmill
In the last 20 years, the United States has essentially dismantled its industrial base, moving production of consumer goods south to Mexico and east to Asia. This has not only dramatically lowered the cost of goods, fueling a consumer boom; it has also helped make our economy less energy-intensive, and lowered our exposure to industrial waste. But net gains for the environment and worker health have been imaginary. We've merely shifted the burdens of industrial ...
Topics: environmental justice, greenhouse-gas emissions, climate, consumerism, business, toxics, United States, China (all these topics)

Clorox + Wal-Mart = deeelight The latest green partnership	Katharine Wroth	14 Jan 2008	Gristmill
Dave posted earlier about the new green cleaning line from Clorox and his combined reaction of happy feelings and 'how will greens spin this into suckage.' But wait, it gets better: Wal-Mart is investing big time in the Clorox product line. Check this quote from a Wal-Mart press release: 'Wal-Mart's support of Green Works has significantly influenced the scale of our launch,' said Ed Huber, vice president of sales, Wal-Mart team at Clorox. 'Along with their size a ...
Topics: business, consumerism, green living, health, shopping, toxics, Wal-Mart (all these topics)

Sweet, sweet monopsony Wal-Mart pushes electronics suppliers to rate their products by eco-friendliness	David Roberts	12 Jan 2008	Gristmill
Wal-Mart is giving its electronics suppliers a scorecard on which they can rate their products on green qualities like durability and ease of recycling. That's tricky, of course, given the lack of a national standards for such things -- so it's pushing for that, too. Given Wal-Mart's size, I won't be surprised if it single-handedly forces the issue. But still, um, evil bad awful satan!
Topics: Wal-Mart, business, consumerism, green products (all these topics)

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