Articles by Grist staff

Home lead-testing kits unreliable, says study

If you rushed out to buy a home lead-testing kit when all of Junior’s toys were recalled, hope you saved the receipt: a new study says that over-the-counter kits, usually used to test paint, aren’t reliable for playthings. The Consumer Product Safety Commission put 104 kits to the test and found that 56 failed to […]

California wildfires continue to rage

In case you haven’t heard, there are some crazy fires going down in southern California. At the time of this posting, some 400,000 acres have burned, igniting more than 1,500 structures, including some 1,000 homes. An estimated 700,000 people have been evacuated; two have died. The White House has declared a state of emergency, and […]

Soviet-induced water crises push Eastern European nations to consider solutions

The following is a guest essay from Eric Pallant, professor of environmental science at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., and codirector of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Integrated Water Resources Management. He is reporting from the National Disasters and Water Security conference in Yerevan, Armenia.

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October 19, 2007

I have to hand it to NATO for dishing out money to sponsor Advanced Research Workshops on environmental security. And I must congratulate Armenia for organizing Natural Disasters and Water Security: Risk Assessment, Emergency Response, and Environmental Management. It shows recognition on the part of both parties that security involves more than advanced weaponry. Conference Director Dr. Trahel Vardanian, in a wide-wale pinstripe suit, does not speak English -- but he must have realized how valuable it would be to host this international meeting. Armenia is a country in transition.

At street level, it seems as if half the city is torn asunder by cranes and bulldozers busily replacing the old Soviet cement-block architecture with sparkling new parks, scalloped stone boulevards, broad-windowed import shops, and new Armenian cement-block high-rises. I see 30-year-old Soviet Ladas and glossy new Nissans side-by-side. Young women in tight jeans and heels, gossiping in Armenian, skitter past old women in babushkas and heavy grey sweaters. Their grandmothers are still selling sunflower seeds on the sidewalk.

Yerevan woman selling bread on the street. (Photo: Eric Pallant)

Time compiles list of environmental heroes

Time Magazine has compiled a long list of environmental heroes, including widely recognizable names (Mikhail Gorbachev, Prince Charles, Robert Redford, Al Gore) eco-recognizable names (Angela Merkel, Tim Flannery, Wangari Maathai, James Hansen, Amory Lovins, David Suzuki, Richard Branson), less-well-known folk (anti-poaching advocate Hammer Simwinga, water-purifying savant Abul Hussam, Russian activist Olga Tsepilova), and none other […]