Articles by Grist staff

Grazing Cain

In a sweeping decision that affects more than 150 million acres in the western and central U.S., the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the Clinton administration did not violate the law in 1995 when it imposed stricter environmental regulations on the grazing of cattle and sheep on federal land. The unanimous ruling, a big victory […]

Onward Christian Soldiers

Climate-related disasters in poor nations are caused by greenhouse-gas emissions from wealthy nations and should no longer be termed “natural disasters,” argues the UK organization Christian Aid in a report released today. These catastrophes, which are becoming more and more frequent thanks to global warming, kill thousands of people and cost billions of dollars. “Nine […]

Turning Over a New Reef

The world’s coral reefs made a partial rebound in 1999 after a bad year in 1998, but they are still threatened by climate change and overfishing, according to the group Reef Check. In 1998, scientists estimated that 15 percent of the world’s reefs had died off, a trend abetted by that year’s record-breaking ocean temperatures, […]

The Firm

The text of a bill being pushed by Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) that would weaken regulation of pesticides is almost a word-for-word duplicate of a draft written by a consulting firm working for a coalition of pesticide manufacturers, agricultural organizations, and food processors. A landmark 1996 law set a new, stringent safety standard for using […]