Uncategorized

Take It Off. Take It All Off.

Writing about the undoing of Mutha Earth is a barrel of laughs, but even Grist staffers sometimes need a break. We’ll be taking a vacation over the next two weeks. We know you’ll miss your daily fix of green news, but fret not — we’ll be back at work on July 8, in better humor […]

The Song Doesn’t Remain the Same

Whales are the largest animals on Earth, not to mention among the most famous crooners — but scientists fear that whale songs will soon become as obscure as 12th century lute music. According to new research, whale sounds might be no match for ambient underwater noise from commercial shipping, military sonar, and seismic surveys. That […]

Going, Going …

Yeah, you’ve probably heard it before: We’re in the middle of a massive extinction era on a par with the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago — only this one is our own doing. By the middle of this century, human activities will have erased up to 30 percent of all […]

Small Wonder

In other news from the Golden State, California could soon have the world’s toughest standards for emissions of microscopic pollutants. Regulations currently being considered by the state Air Resources Board target pollutants composed of particles of dust and soot that are smaller than 10 microns in diameter, or about one-seventh the diameter of a human […]

Downwind for the Count

Thousands of “downwinders” — people living in the path of radiation releases from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation — scored a legal victory yesterday when a federal appeals court ordered a lower court to reconsider two lawsuits against five former Hanford contractors. From 1944 to 1989, Hanford produced most of the nation’s plutonium for warheads; research […]

Dumbstruck

The sins of the fathers (etc.) shall be visited on the children — at least when the sins are environmental and the children are in China. A recent survey of more than 11,000 schoolchildren in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen found that nearly two-thirds suffered from lead poisoning. Such poisoning, when untreated, can cause […]

Peru-stroika

An international coalition of conservation organizations is seeking protection for a 74 million-acre, species-rich tropical corridor between Peru and Bolivia. Conservation International and Peru’s National Institute of Natural Resources are working with local authorities to try to protect the region from mining, oil and gas exploitation, road and dam construction, and logging. The corridor includes […]

Taking stock of the world’s coral reefs

One ocean binds together our world. Of that vast expanse of water, less than one-fourth of 1 percent is occupied by coral reefs — yet reefs are home to more than a quarter of all known marine fish species. Anyone who dives knows that these reefs are dying, but few understand the extent to which […]

Coral-ations

98,572 — square miles of coral reef in the world 1 97,100 — square miles of the state of Wyoming 2 58 — percentage of the world’s reefs that are potentially threatened by human activities 1 34 — percentage of the world’s reefs that are off the shores of Southeast Asia 3 88 — percentage […]

Double-blind Test

The threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan seems to have abated slightly — for the moment — but what about the consequences of India’s nuclear testing? Four years after the country exploded nuclear devices in underground tests in the Thar desert near the Pakistan border, villagers are questioning the government’s pat assurance that […]