Articles by Grist staff

Water Foul

Bush Administration Proposes Lower Standards for Toxic Metal Selenium Even while the Bush administration publicly courts hunters and fishers, it’s taking quiet steps that those outdoorsfolks likely wouldn’t approve of. Over the objections of many federal scientists, the U.S. EPA is poised to establish a more lax standard for selenium, a toxic metal that builds […]

Smells Like Ship

Concern Rises Over Air Pollution from Ships Tough regulations and technological advances have made power plants, cars, and other common sources of air pollution cleaner over past decades, and as they get cleaner another common source comes into sharper relief: ships. In some port cities like Los Angeles, ships — including oil tankers, container ships, […]

Limp Biscuit

Judge Lifts Injunctions on Biscuit Salvage Logging The legal battle over logging at the site of 2002’s devastating Biscuit wildfire in southwestern Oregon continues. A federal judge has lifted the temporary injunctions that barred the U.S. Forest Service from logging in the forest, rejecting an appeal from Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. The group […]

A Breed Apart

Plant Breeders Look to the Past for Seeds Suited to Organic Growing In the post-WWII era, as farmers leaned increasingly on monocultures drenched in pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, seed breeders began developing genetic strains suited to those conditions. Funded by industry research money, they bred seeds designed to flourish in artificially controlled surroundings with heavy […]