Articles by Grist staff

I Vant to Suck Your Juice

Household gadgets and appliances suck power even when they’re shut off, constituting 10 percent of the electricity use in the average San Francisco Bay area household and costing residents about $80 a year, according to a new study by researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. These so-called vampires include everything from stereos and computers […]

Bury, Bury Scary

The Department of Energy now says the amount of plutonium and other radioactive waste from the manufacture of nuclear weapons that was released into soil or buried in thin containers from the 1940s to the 1970s was 10 times larger than previously thought. The DOE had been saying since 1987 that more than 97 percent […]

When Al's Said and Done …

Al Gore made a hard pitch to enviros during an impassioned campaign speech in Portland, Ore., last night, pledging to protect old-growth trees, roadless forest areas, and salmon runs. “When it comes to the environment, I’ve never given up, I’ve never turned back, and I never will,” Gore told a crowd of nearly 4,000, in […]

All-consuming Passion

Overconsumption has led to an estimated 33 percent decline in the natural wealth of the world’s ecosystems over the past 30 years, according to a report released by the World Wildlife Fund on Friday. If current patterns continue, humans would need an additional two planets in order to survive, WWF said. The group measured the […]