Articles by Grist staff

Riders Knocked Out of Their Saddles

Senate Democrats knocked four anti-environmental provisions out of an Interior Department spending bill yesterday, including riders that would have blocked new energy-efficiency rules for federal agencies and permitted lead mining in a Missouri national forest. But Democrats failed to remove language that would let mining companies dump large amounts of waste on public land, and […]

Carbon Sinking

Worldwide emissions of carbon from the burning of fossil fuels fell by 0.5 percent last year, the first drop since 1993, according to new estimates from the Worldwatch Institute. This decline took place even as the world economy expanded by 2.5 percent last year, undermining the argument that reducing greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate […]

Boyz 'n the Oxygen Hood

Children in poor, predominantly minority neighborhoods in New York City are as much as 21 times more likely than children from affluent parts of the city to be hospitalized for asthma, according to a new study. Doctors suspect that a number of environmental factors contribute to the nation’s urban asthma epidemic, including indoor and outdoor […]

Frown and Bear It

Wild bear populations around the world are seriously threatened by poaching, pollution, and disappearing forests, according to a World Wildlife Fund report released yesterday. In Russia, home of the world’s largest brown bear population, poaching for hides and gallbladders has increased dramatically in the last decade, and poaching is rampant in China and southeast Asia. […]