Articles by Grist staff

Going, Going …

Yeah, you’ve probably heard it before: We’re in the middle of a massive extinction era on a par with the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago — only this one is our own doing. By the middle of this century, human activities will have erased up to 30 percent of all […]

Simon Says

In an apparent effort to give Republican candidate Bill Simon, Jr., an edge over incumbent Gray Davis (D) in the California governor race, the Bush administration questioned Davis’ commitment to protect his state’s coastline and agreed to work with Simon to end offshore drilling. After visiting the White House yesterday, Simon said he had won […]

Small Wonder

In other news from the Golden State, California could soon have the world’s toughest standards for emissions of microscopic pollutants. Regulations currently being considered by the state Air Resources Board target pollutants composed of particles of dust and soot that are smaller than 10 microns in diameter, or about one-seventh the diameter of a human […]

Downwind for the Count

Thousands of “downwinders” — people living in the path of radiation releases from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation — scored a legal victory yesterday when a federal appeals court ordered a lower court to reconsider two lawsuits against five former Hanford contractors. From 1944 to 1989, Hanford produced most of the nation’s plutonium for warheads; research […]