Articles by Grist staff

Snippets from the news

• Legislators forced to give up gas-guzzlers. • Nuclear power will get dirtier, says report. • Can new high-voltage cables help renewables beat back NIMBY? • Large facility will open to turn landfill methane into fuel. • Humane Society protests after sea lion dies.

Nitrogen fertilizer is in short supply

Yet another phenomenon tightly tied to soaring food prices: the price and availability of fertilizer. Global consumption of cheap chemical fertilizer has leapt an estimated 31 percent from 1996 to 2008, boosting modern agriculture around the world. But now, fertilizer is pricey and in short supply, leaving farmers scrambling to sufficiently feed their crops. “Putting […]

Wild Asian vultures going the way of the dodo

Wild Asian vultures are likely going to the way of the dodo, a new study says. The white-backed vulture population has plunged by nearly 99.9 percent in India since 1992, and two other vulture species have seen a drop of 97 percent, say researchers publishing in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. Researchers […]

Next decade could be cooler than expected, says study

Natural shifts in ocean circulation may trump human-caused warming over the next decade, causing global temperatures to cool slightly, says new research published in the journal Nature. But hang on to your pessimism: “Just to make things clear, we are not stating that anthropogenic climate change won’t be as bad as previously thought” over the […]