Articles by Grist staff

Solar, Without Flair

President Bush’s proposed budget for the government’s 2004 fiscal year doesn’t contain much good news for renewable energy advocates: Total research funding for the Energy Department’s energy efficiency and renewable energy programs would increase just 0.1 percent. Last summer, though, the feds apparently had enough money to purchase a solar-energy system to heat the presidential […]

First Down

The parent company of a power plant in eastern Ohio has become the first of 36 energy utilities to be tried for causing smog and health problems in the Northeast. In a lawsuit that began yesterday, the U.S. Justice Department accused FirstEnergy Corporation of significantly upgrading its W.H. Sammis plant without installing new pollution controls, […]

Beam Me Up

The U.S. food industry is increasingly turning to irradiation to kill deadly bacteria such as E. coli and listeria in meat — a move environmentalists, food-safety advocates, and others say could amount to leaping from the frying pan into the fire. Irradiation uses high-energy electrons, gamma rays, or X-rays to kill bacteria. Critics say the […]

Quicksilver, Slow Kids

World leaders urgently need to take action to cut down on mercury emissions to protect human health, according to a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme. Mercury is released into the atmosphere naturally from rocks, soils, and volcanic eruptions, but mercury emissions have dramatically increased from pre-industrial levels due to human activity. Seventy […]