Articles by Grist staff

War and Peas

War is hell — and not just for human beings. A team of researchers from the U.N. Environment Programme is headed to Afghanistan to measure the ecological damage of decades of war, drought, famine, and more war. The study, which is part of a relatively new trend of analyzing the effects of human conflict on […]

Rhode Island Lead

A Superior Court judge in Rhode Island paved the way for a landmark lawsuit earlier this week when he gave state Attorney Gen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D) permission to sue manufacturers of lead-based paint. The paint industry had attempted to derail the trial by calling for every one of an estimated 300,000 owners of lead-painted homes […]

Kenya Opener

Even though Kenya is a major food exporter, it hasn’t reaped much benefit from the $20 billion-per-year global market in organic foods. Now some farmers and nonprofits in the African nation are trying to change that. Many Kenyans already grow their crops without chemical inputs, but up till now, not a single one has been […]

If It Weren’t for Those Medal-ing Kids

The 2002 Winter Olympics open tomorrow in Salt Lake City, and not everybody’s thrilled about it. Environmentalists say developers took advantage of the games to permanently damage the pristine Rocky Mountain environment, even though protecting the natural world is now the third precept — after sports and culture — of the Olympics. The Salt Lake […]