Articles by Grist staff

Pardon Me Boys, Is That the Chattanooga Cough-Cough?

Add diesel locomotives to the list of things killing you Recently, researchers discovered they’d been a little off in their estimates of how much smog-forming pollution diesel locomotives generate. How off? Turns out by 2030 the trains will be producing about twice what was previously estimated — 800,000 tons of nitrogen oxide and 25,000 tons […]

Won’t You Be My Labor?

Immigration crackdown exacerbates organic-farm labor shortage Organic farmers are desperately struggling to find workers, caught between rising demand and an ever-more-severe labor shortage. More than half of the 1.8 million farmworkers in the U.S. are here illegally, and increased border patrols have reduced the number of immigrants trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Service-sector jobs […]

Switch Getters

Industries pull the switch on mercury switches The steel and auto industries have agreed to pay $2 million each to remove mercury-containing light switches from millions of scrapyard-bound vehicles. The deal will reduce U.S. annual mercury pollution by at least 5 percent over the next 15 years, according to U.S. EPA chief Stephen Johnson. Bully […]

Gun in 60 Seconds

China to protect rare animals by killing them How do you say “cognitive dissonance” in Chinese? This Sunday, Chinese officials will be auctioning off licenses to kill rare wildlife — including some endangered species — to raise funds for … wildlife conservation. Due to the country’s gun laws, only foreigners can bid for permits at […]