Articles by Grist staff

Polar Vault

After years of negotiating, the U.S. and Russia are signing an agreement today to protect polar bears in northeastern Siberia and Alaska. There are an estimated 3,000 polar bears in the region — and that number has been growing — but enviros have been fearful that the total could decline because ice cover has been […]

Radioactive-free Europe

About 1,000 demonstrators protested yesterday outside a German nuclear power plant that hopes to ship its radioactive waste to France sometime soon. The German government recently lifted a two-year ban on such shipments, which had been imposed after it became clear that past shipments were leaking radiation well above permitted levels. The demonstration occurred even […]

Swing State, Sweet Chariots

Texas Gov. George W. Bush traveled to the swing state of Michigan on Friday to attack Al Gore as an enemy of the automobile whose focus on the environment would damage the economy. Bush noted that the vice president cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate in 1993 to raise gasoline taxes and quoted from […]

Leaps and Boundaries

In what would be the first major effort to confront transboundary air pollution since an agreement on acid rain pollution in the 1980s, the U.S. and Canada have drafted a smog-reduction plan for the next decade. Under it, the U.S. would reduce its nitrogen oxide emissions by 36 percent by 2010, while Canada would drop […]