Articles by Grist staff

Inuit villagers give birth to twice as many girls as boys

Twice as many girls as boys are being born in Arctic communities across Greenland and northern Russia, where Inuit villagers are known to have high levels of human-made chemicals in their blood. Many babies are being born premature; baby boys tend to be small. Hormone-mimicking chemicals originate in industrialized countries, travel to the Arctic by […]

New Russian bomb not as eco-unfriendly as a nuclear weapon, says official

Russia has tested the world’s most powerful vacuum bomb, with an explosion as powerful as a nuclear weapon. But don’t get the wrong idea: the Russian deputy armed forces chief of staff wants to stress that “the action of this weapon does not contaminate the environment, in contrast to a nuclear one.” And to think […]

Warming globe will have major security issues, says think tank

The security implications of climate change resemble those of nuclear war, a security think tank said today. “Fundamental environmental issues of food, water, and energy security ultimately lie behind many present security concerns, and climate change will magnify all three,” wrote the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which foresees collapsed governments, heightened racial and ethnic […]

Judge rules against Big Auto, says states can regulate emissions from cars

States should be allowed to restrict greenhouse-gas emissions from cars, and Big Auto should just deal, a federal judge ruled today. Right now, the only real way to curb the emissions is to improve gas mileage; when Vermont decided to adopt California’s strict emissions rules, automakers sued, claiming that the state was illegally regulating fuel […]