Articles by Grist staff

Going to Hell in a Sandbasket

North central China being slowly swallowed by desert Two deserts in north central China are rapidly expanding, burying 1,500 square miles of grasslands, lakes, forests, and villages under sand every year. Government-led deforestation and water-engineering projects are largely to blame. A giant reservoir near the town of Minqin diverts all available water resources into an […]

Biscuits ‘n’ Crazy

Forest Service will auction off Oregon timber burned by Biscuit fire Enviros have lost a four-year legal battle to keep logging out of Oregon’s Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, burned four years ago by the massive Biscuit fire. A federal appeals court has cleared the U.S. Forest Service to auction off rights today to about 400 […]

The Evolution Will Be Pint-Sized

Some small animals evolving to adapt to climate change, study finds As we humans cling to the status quo while it floats down the river toward a global-warming waterfall (ahem), smaller animals are getting on with evolving. New research in Science identifies heritable genetic changes in some small wildlife that increase their chances of survival […]

Celebrate the oceans by learning what you can do to help protect them

Ahoy mateys! 'Tis time to splice the mainbrace -- that's pirate talk for gettin' sloshed! -- it's World Ocean Day. Yo-ho-hmmm, you ask? Well, glad ye did. This day is dedicated to celebrating the briny deep and making sure she's protected so we can sail ho! Cause without a healthy ocean, there'll be no poop deck or pillaging, no planks to walk nor timbers to shiver ... and worst of all, me hearties, we'll be no different than ye average Joe Landlubber. Arrr ... That'd be a fate worse than ... well, let's just say I'd trade me good eye and me good leg never to think about that again.

On to celebratin' I say. And what better way than to hop aboard the Ocean Voyager, "a five-part journey to defend our oceans" led by Cap'n Mother Jones, which has been focusing a good bit of editorial time on ocean issues these days. The idea is to sign up to receive an email once a week for five weeks -- and each email includes premium content from the magazine about the state of our ocean and ways you can help defend it. As me fellow blogmate (and Oceana CEO) Andrew Sharpless mentioned, the project focuses not on the work of just one organization, but rather points to the efforts of a number of organizations. And each week's episode (or destination on the voyage route, if we're using the official metaphor) also focuses on a different marine issue.