Articles by Grist staff

Carbon Stink

States Sue Power Companies Over Carbon Dioxide Emissions Eight states and New York City filed suit today against five of the largest power companies in the U.S., which they say are responsible for roughly 10 percent of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions. The suit is filed under a relatively obscure federal common law of public […]

Pombo and Pombo-er

Anti-Enviro California Rep Blocks Wilderness Designation For years, citizens, enviro groups, and Washington state lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have worked together to craft compromise legislation to create the Wild Sky Wilderness Area, a 106,000-acre swath of Washington’s Cascade Mountains. The resulting bill has passed the U.S. Senate twice, unanimously. It now appears, […]

Bagger Advance

International Pressure Against Plastic Bags Grows Somewhere between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year. They’re made of petroleum products, and they end up in landfills, adorning the landscape, or choking marine creatures — about 100,000 a year, according to the environmental group Planet Ark. Several countries have enacted measures […]

Lung Disease

Deforestation in Brazil Leads to Massive CO2 Emissions Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has made that country one of the world’s top 10 sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide pollution. Often called the “lungs of the world,” the Amazon is bigger than the continental U.S., and loses an area bigger than New Jersey every […]