Articles by Grist staff

The Shipping News

Global warming may open Northwest Passage to shipping Global warming may melt arctic ice enough to make the legendary Northwest Passage a viable trade route, trimming almost 40 percent (roughly two weeks) off the current Asia-to-Europe route, which involves a large detour down through either the Suez or Panama canals. Some view this as a […]

Himalaya Hatas

Himalayan glaciers melting; catastrophe in the wings Researchers are raising alarms about the rapid rate of melting in Himalayan glaciers, the lack of current scientific data and monitoring thereof, and the possibility of resulting catastrophic floods in the short term and water shortages in the long term. Some 2,300 of the Nepalese Himalayas’ 3,300 glaciers […]

Sage Brush With Death

Millions of oil and gas dollars at stake in sage grouse controversy The question of whether to list the sage grouse — a chicken-sized bird that roams the sagebrush plains of the U.S. West — as threatened is shaping up as an epic conflict, with millions of dollars in revenue from oil and natural-gas drilling […]

European. Small. How Can They Fail?

European automakers target the U.S. with itsy-bitsy cars European automakers hope to make inroads in U.S. markets with small, fuel-efficient cars, but they have quite a task ahead of them, despite gas prices that now exceed $2 per gallon. While a segment of the U.S. market is gaga for hybrids like the Toyota Prius, which […]