Articles by Grist staff

The AP’s climate conference footprint fetish

“The AP writer couldn’t see the forest for the trees.” — Terry Tamminen “The fact is, we live in a glass house today, folks, and sometimes we become part of the story whether we want to be or not.” — Lex Alexander What a difference vision makes. Last week, CJR Observatory’s Cristine Russell wrote about […]

Note to progressives: Your guy won!

The following is a guest essay from Hal Clifford, executive editor of Orion Magazine. —– In the wake of Barack Obama’s victory, the relief was palpable, the excitement unprecedented. For a while. And then the nitpicking started. Not from Fox “News” or the Arizona country club where John McCain conceded. From the left: He’s just […]

What should be done with the empty big box?

Last month, Circuit City announced that it would close 155 of its stores, most of them big boxes: those 50,000- to almost 300,000-square-foot warehouse-like structures, often built far from city centers. By one estimate, there are almost 3,000 vacant big boxes littering the American landscape, with more to come as major retailers falter. Makes Wal-Mart’s […]

One in three toys tested has worrisome levels of toxic chemicals, group says

A study of some 1,500 popular children’s toys sold in the United States found that one in three tested contained “medium” to “high” levels of a range of toxic chemicals including arsenic, lead, mercury, and others, according to green group the Ecology Center. “Our hope is that by empowering consumers with this information, manufacturers and […]