Articles by Grist staff

Sick ’em

Global climate change isn’t just going to make our planet hotter — it’s going to make it sicker. That was the finding of a wide-ranging study of world ecosystems, published in today’s issue of Science and showing that warmer temperatures have sparked a plague of epidemics in plants and animals. From oysters to oak trees, […]

The Sludge Report

From the department of You’ve Got To Be Kidding: An internal U.S. EPA document alleges that the 200,000 tons of toxic sludge dumped by the Army Corps of Engineers into the Potomac River every year is actually good for fish, because it forces them to flee the polluted area — and escape from anglers in […]

Take It Off. Take It All Off.

Writing about the undoing of Mutha Earth is a barrel of laughs, but even Grist staffers sometimes need a break. We’ll be taking a vacation over the next two weeks. We know you’ll miss your daily fix of green news, but fret not — we’ll be back at work on July 8, in better humor […]

Oh, I’m Glad I’m Not in the Land of Cotton

For the first time, genetically modified insects have been released in the wild, in a secret location in the cotton fields of Arizona. The insects, pink bollworms, were modified by scientists to effectively destroy their own species; they are designed to be sterile, so that when they mate with natural bollworms, no offspring will result. […]