Articles by Grist staff

Occupational Hazard

More than 100 environmental activists occupied Al Gore’s campaign office in Olympia, Wash., yesterday to protest the veep’s ties to Occidental Petroleum, a U.S. corporation with plans to drill for oil on rainforest land in Colombia claimed by the indigenous U’wa tribe. Police arrested 10 of the activists, the second occasion this year on which […]

Getting a Little Pokey in Her Old Age

Betty Krawczyk, a 72-year-old great-grandmother and romance writer, has become a hero to many Canadian environmental activists after being sentenced to a year in prison for peacefully protesting against the logging of ancient forests in the Elaho Valley in British Columbia. As she began serving her term yesterday, she said, “If I was out today, […]

Baby Boom

Babies born today in the Chernobyl area of Ukraine face as big a risk of contracting radiation-related illnesses as children who lived there during the deadly 1986 nuclear explosion, according to research released yesterday by Israeli scientists. Thyroid, liver, and other diseases were more prevalent among children in the area than among unexposed children, the […]

States of Grace

New York, Hawaii, and California have made the most progress in improving their energy efficiency over the last 20 years, while Alaska and North Dakota have made the least, according to a study released this week by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Overall, the U.S. cut its energy intensity — or energy used […]