Articles by Grist staff

U.S. EPA proposes easing reporting requirements for factory farms

The U.S. EPA has proposed a “better approach” to making factory farms report their levels of air-polluting emissions — don’t make ’em report them at all! Under a proposal put forth today, commercial livestock operations would not have to report hazardous chemical pollution if the source was animal waste. The rule change, which would exempt […]

British duo’s carbon-negative road trip fueled by chocolate

This weekend, while you’re finishing up the last of the chocolates in your advent calendar — oh admit it, you ate them all already — Britons Andy Pag and John Grimshaw will be rolling to the end of a chocolate-fueled road trip. The duo claim that their trip from Poole, England through the Sahara desert […]

Online shopping better for the earth than going to the mall, says study

Online shopping is better for the planet than multiple trips to the mall, says a somewhat ill-timed study. (Start your online shopping today, spend $3,000,000 for shipping.) “Using several assumptions and data from several authoritative sources, we can reasonably estimate that nearly [500,000 metric tons] of carbon dioxide are kept out of the atmosphere by […]

U.S. fertility rate now high enough to sustain population

Americans consume far more than their fair share of the world’s resources — and more Americans are on the way. The overall fertility rate in the U.S. increased 2 percent from 2005 to 2006, nudging the average number of babies born per woman to 2.1 — high enough to sustain a stable population for the […]