Articles by Grist staff

Take It Wheezy

Climate Change Contributes to Asthma in Poor Preschoolers Poor and minority preschool children in U.S. inner cities are among the first people suffering adverse effects from global warming. According to a study released yesterday by Harvard researchers, climate change is among the primary causes of a growing epidemic of asthma in the Western world. Asthma […]

Leavitt for Later

EPA Postpones Final Decision on Mercury Regs Under a withering storm of criticism — hundreds of thousands of public comments, outraged punditry, and earlier this month, a letter from 45 senators — U.S. EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt announced yesterday that the agency would delay release of final regulations governing mercury emissions from power plants to […]

Goin’ Smack to Cali

Supreme Court Rules Against California Air-Quality Regulators The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 yesterday that Southern Californian air-quality officials had overstepped their legal bounds when they required operators of private fleets (bus lines, trash haulers, etc.) in the region to purchase only low-pollution vehicles. The ruling was bitterly disappointing for officials in a region with one […]

Waiting to Inhale

American Lung Association Names Most Polluted Areas The Supreme Court ruling spotlighted above is harshly ironic in light of today’s release by the American Lung Association of its annual report on the U.S. cities and counties most threatened by air pollution, which has been linked with lung disease, lung cancer, and a variety of respiratory […]