Articles by Grist staff

Bark Lacks Bite

Planting vast numbers of trees may stall the process of climate change for a few years but will not help solve the problem, according to research conducted by scientists for the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and published in New Scientist magazine. Forests absorb carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas, but the new […]

Hill's Angel

In a landmark decision, a federal judge ruled yesterday that controversial mountaintop-removal mining operations cannot bury streams under tons of waste rock and earth. Valley fills caused by such mining violate the federal Clean Water Act as well as federal and West Virginia mining rules, the judge ruled. In mountaintop removal, operators use explosives to […]

The Rich Don't Just Get Richer — They Get Cancer, Too

Environmental factors may be partially responsible for elevated breast cancer rates in Newton, Mass., a Boston suburb, according to a new study funded by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Women living in areas of Newton where breast cancer rates were higher than usual were more likely to be affluent and well-educated, and they reported […]

Brown and Browner

Clinton administration officials who held a “town meeting” in Seattle yesterday with the intent of assuaging environmentalists’ concerns and anger over global trade issues met with little success. EPA chief Carol Browner, Frank Loy, undersecretary of state for global affairs, Ian Bowles of the White House Council on Economic Quality, and Dorothy Dwoskin, assistant U.S. […]