Articles by Grist staff

POP Stars

Delegates from 122 nations reached agreement yesterday on a treaty to ban or reduce the use of 12 persistent organic pollutants (POPs), chemicals such as PCBs and pesticides that have been linked to cancer, birth defects, and genetic abnormalities in humans and wildlife. The ban, which must be ratified by 50 countries to become legally […]

Halt! Who Cuts There?

A federal judge on Friday halted 178 timber sales in western Oregon and Washington and Northern California after finding that they presented risks to threatened and endangered salmon. In issuing her injunction, Judge Barbara Rothstein found that the National Marine Fisheries Service had overlooked its own rules to protect fish when it approved the logging […]

Noble Prize

At a ceremony in Stockholm on Friday, scientists and activists from Ethiopia, Indonesia, Turkey, and the U.S. received Right Livelihood awards, commonly known as the “Alternative Nobel Prizes,” for their work on environmental and human rights initiatives. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher, the chief environmental official in Ethiopia, was honored for leading an international effort to […]

Burning Japanese, I Really Think So

Even though Japanese citizens tend to throw out only half as much trash as U.S. citizens, Tokyo will be out of space for its garbage in 30 years, according to its sanitation department. Because of a general lack of space for trash in the country, Japan burns about 75 percent of its garbage, compared to […]