Articles by Grist staff

The Sum of Owl Fears

Feds to shoot barred owls to save spotted owls Would you kill an owl to save another owl? It’s not a thought experiment from your Intro to Ethics class: Northern spotted owls — the feathered poster children of last decade’s timber wars — are dwindling in the Pacific Northwest, and bigger, more aggressive barred owls, […]

The Peat Is Gone

Siberia’s fast thaw alarms scientists Siberia is melting. Meeelllting! Ahem. Of particular concern is a 386,000 square-mile expanse of western Siberian permafrost that’s been icy cold for about 11,000 years and sits atop billions of tons of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. If the permafrost melts, the methane could […]

Dense and Densibility

Densest U.S. cities aren’t the ones you think Advocates of energy-saving urban density usually laud the towering buildings and subways of Manhattan, as contrasted with the car-heavy suburban sprawl of, say, Los Angeles. But the most dense city in the U.S., measured by people per square mile, is … Los Angeles. In fact, despite its […]

Apotcalypse

Armed pot growers invade public lands When we say “growing pot in national parks,” what do you think of? Aging hippie, beat-up VW minibus, little dope field a few yards up the hill from the camp site? Yeah, those were good times … but where were we? Oh yes. Well, times change: California’s Sequoia National […]