Articles by Grist staff

Gift ideas and holiday cheer from Grist readers and staff

The holiday season is upon us, and you know what that means: bajillions of crazed consumers seeking sales assistants full of cheer, good tidings of markdowns, and the joy of reaching the last TMX Elmo just before that little old lady in the wheelchair does. Photo: iStockphoto What’s a jaded green to do? Turn to […]

Rubber Ducky, You’re Not the One

San Francisco set to enact first-in-nation ban on toxics in baby toys Next week, San Francisco will become the first U.S. city to ban the manufacture, distribution, and sale of baby toys containing chemicals linked to cancer and developmental delays. The prime targets — bisphenol A and phthalates — have been found in everything from […]

Flipping the Bird

Experts say risk of a bird-flu pandemic has lessened The world is safe from a bird-flu pandemic. Maybe. Last week, researchers said they’d isolated the mutations that could turn the virus into a human-to-human juggernaut, while another team unveiled an “MChip” test that identifies the distinctive flu strain, which has caused 153 human deaths since […]

The End Is Sigh

U.N. conference ends with little progress on climate action In a monstrous anticlimax, the U.N. climate summit in Nairobi, Kenya, ended with a decision to … review the Kyoto Protocol in 2008. “From Christian Aid’s point of view that’s simply not good enough, and we need some heads to be knocked together by somebody,” said […]