Articles by Grist staff

The Maine Event

Meanwhile, Maine is several steps ahead of the federal government when it comes to combating climate change: Today, the state will become the first in the nation to enact a law establishing specific goals and deadlines for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Other New England states have addressed carbon dioxide emissions through different means — such […]

Classrooms Dismissed

Some California classrooms may be contaminated, and not with the cooties. According to a new state study, portable classrooms are more likely than their conventional counterparts to contain dangerous levels of toxic chemicals. Half of the portable classrooms studied exceeded air-quality guidelines for eight-hour indoor exposure to formaldehyde, and one-hour exposure levels were 10 times […]

Stow It

The U.S. famously declined to sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, but yesterday it jumped on the bandwagon of another effort to control global warming: a research program dedicated to exploring technologies for capturing and storing carbon dioxide. Such technologies, collectively known as carbon sequestration, seek to keep CO2 out of the atmosphere through […]

Weed Between the Lines

In a finding that undermines one key argument in favor of genetically modified (GM) crops, researchers at Iowa State University have discovered that a number of “superweeds” have developed a resistance to Monsanto’s widely used Roundup herbicide. Monsanto has engineered crops that are tolerant of Roundup, the idea being that the chemical would kill everything […]