Articles by Grist staff

Reefer Badness

Caribbean corals bleaching at unprecedented rate This year’s notably warmer-than-usual Atlantic waters — fuel for 2005’s intense hurricane season — have been devastating some life below the waves as well. Water temperatures have remained elevated for about 15 weeks, causing coral reefs to bleach from the Florida Keys to Puerto Rico to Panama. The micro-algae […]

Ol’ Dirty Bastards

Oil companies made record profits, and all we got was this moral outrage Pity the poor oil firms: The five largest are expected to reap a record $28 billion in collective earnings this quarter, and all signs point to a lucrative six months to come, but they can’t brag about it — at least not […]

Barbarians at the Irrigate

Big Ag wins, fish and wildlife lose in California’s water wars Thanks in part to a recent public-relations blitz and some crucial assistance from the Bush administration, Big Agriculture seems to have won California’s decades-long water wars. Irrigation districts in California’s Central Valley are signing federal contracts that ensure taxpayer-funded water supply for the next […]

Cleanup on Aisle Six

Wal-Mart unveils specific, ambitious environmental goals After weeks of scattered signs and announcements, today Wal-Mart issued a far-reaching set of concrete environmental goals. CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. announced that the company would invest $500 million in technologies to reduce its stores’ greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 percent in seven years, increase its truck fleet’s fuel […]