Articles by Grist staff

Common chemical in food containers not a health threat, says FDA

Food containers made with common chemical bisphenol A pose no health threat, according to a draft assessment by the Food and Drug Administration. More than 100 government- and university-funded studies have linked BPA to cancer, diabetes, behavioral disorders, and reproductive problems, and an April report from the National Toxicology Program declared there was “some concern” […]

Snippets from the news

• Oil and gas leases on Colorado’s Roan Plateau sell for record amount. • High fuel prices mean ramped up drilling and mining. • Climate change, past forest management make western U.S. susceptible to fire. • Electric bikes sell like hotcakes. • Invasive snail could hurt Lake Michigan. • New species of robin found in […]

Sen. Boxer none too happy about feds’ attack on ESA

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) wrote a letter Friday to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne expressing “great concern” over the Bush administration’s sneaky attack on the Endangered Species Act. The change would allow federal agencies to green-light many projects with no independent review of impact on endangered species — which, uh, kind of defeats the purpose. Boxer […]

Australia continues to deal with epic drought

Longstanding drought has wreaked havoc across Australia, drying up lakes into shallow, acidic puddles and threatening drinking-water supplies. Unable to coax rain from the sky, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has fast-tracked a plan to buy back water entitlements from the heaviest irrigators in the Murray-Darling basin, an agricultural stronghold which produces all of the country’s […]