A green zine’s gritty eco-buzz

This site’s editors describe Grist Magazine as “gloom and doom with a sense of humor.” Eco-warriors who will still laugh are a vanishing breed, but the ringleaders of this online zine muster wit and communal wisdom to report enviro news, providing their own views through editorials, cartoons by Suzy Becker (“All I Need to Know I Learned From My Cat”), thought-provoking columns and interviews with far-right and far-left movers.

For equal parts horror and humor, check out the “Daily Grist,” which features breaking news in the eco-world via its own reporters and international news links, and the “Dear Me” column, with dispatches from greensters in the field. Throughout the site, topics roam the open range -- from the recent speech by Environmental Protection Agency head Mike Leavitt before the National Assn. of Manufacturers conference, in which Leavitt discussed how industry can craft the results it wants on environmental issues in the election year, to “Ask Umbra,” an enviro version of Dear Abby. Good stuff, this -- definitely grist for the wild-land person’s mill.

-- Shermakaye Bass