Articles by Grist staff

One Giant Spring for Mankind

Last Friday marked the 40th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the book that galvanized a generation of environmentalists and catapulted the movement out of the margins of American culture and into the political spotlight. The book also resulted in real policy changes: “Silent Spring” was a major factor in the creation […]

No Screen Savior

California Gov. Gray Davis (D) vetoed legislation yesterday that would have created a program to recycle electronic products and keep their hazardous components out of landfills. The high-tech industry strongly opposed the legislation, which would have levied a $10 recycling fee per new computer or television sold. Environmentalists, who say the veto reflects the political […]

You’re Out of the Club

With the November elections nearing and tensions heating up in the New York gubernatorial race, the Sierra Club’s 40,000-member Atlantic Chapter voted last weekend to endorse Democratic candidate Carl McCall over Republican incumbent George Pataki. But not everyone’s happy about the vote: Chapter Chair Aaron Mair is arguing that the vote was informed more by […]

The Iceman Cometh

A Spanish scientist says that when giant gobs of ice fall from the sky, it’s a sure sign of global warming. Jesus Martinez-Frias, the director of planetary geography at Spain’s Astrobiology Center in Madrid, has spent the last two and a half years studying the ice meteors, known as megacryometeors. Although it may sound contradictory […]