Articles by Grist staff

Snippets from the news

• Building boom could lead to water crisis in Spain. • One of largest U.S. Hummer stores closes its doors. • Can pollution make you fat? • Could invasive species be a good thing? • Zinc mining could threaten world’s deepest lake.

U.S. bottled-water guzzling is slowing

Americans’ seemingly insatiable thirst for bottled water seems to be slowing, according to new industry stats. Annual U.S. bottled-water consumption shot up nearly 46 percent between 2002 and 2007, to an average 29.3 gallons per person. But the Beverage Marketing Corporation predicts that bottled-water guzzling will grow only 6.7 percent in 2008, the smallest increase […]

Over Nevadan objections, Yucca Mountain repository inches forward

Nevada’s Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump inched forward Monday as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission agreed to formally review the feds’ license application for the site. It will likely take the NRC four years or so to peruse the Department of Energy’s 8,600-page application and decide whether to give Yucca the go-ahead. Attorneys for the state […]

Arctic ringed by navigable water; rush to exploit it may spur new int’l law

For the first time in recorded history, the world’s cap of Arctic sea ice is surrounded by a ring of theoretically navigable water. It’s a phenomenon sure to pique the interest of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the U.S., which all have Arctic territories and are maneuvering to claim as much of […]