Articles by Grist

We found 26 results.


Brazil’s Supreme Court Upholds Indigenous Rights to Reclaim Land
Lyric Aquino | Grist - TRANSCEND Media Service, 9 Oct 2023

25 Sep 2023 – The ruling puts up additional road blocks for the mining, logging, and cattle industries.

→ read full article

A Vital Atlantic Ocean System Could Collapse Sooner Than Previously Thought
Siri Chilukuri | Grist - TRANSCEND Media Service, 7 Aug 2023

26 Jul 2023 – Climate change is slowing down the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a key ocean “conveyer belt.” New research finds it could collapse completely by 2060.

→ read full article

Extreme Heat Is Ramping Up All Over the World. So Are Solutions.
Claire Elise Thompson | Grist - TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Jul 2023

19 Jul 2023 – From Seville to Phoenix, city governments and community-based organizations are trying new strategies to protect residents from deadly heat.

→ read full article

The Secretive Legal Weapon That Fossil Fuel Interests Use against Climate-Conscious Countries
Lois Parshley | Grist - TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Jan 2023

17 Jan 2023 – Investor-state dispute settlements increasingly allow oil and gas investors to sue countries over their climate policies.

→ read full article

It’s Not Just Coca-Cola: Corporations Have Co-Opted the UN Climate Talks
Kate Yoder | Grist - TRANSCEND Media Service, 21 Nov 2022

15 Nov 2022 – COP27 is covered with logos. But that’s just the start of companies’ influence. The event is brought to you by the largest plastic producer in the world, Coca-Cola.

→ read full article

Hawaii to US Navy: Quit Polluting Our Waters
Grist - TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Oct 2022

6 Oct 2022 – A $9 million fine and a sewage leak into Pearl Harbor are just the latest in a series of water crises.

→ read full article

How One Tiny Country Is Beating the Pandemic and Climate Change
Kate Yoder | Grist - TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Feb 2021

12 Feb 2021 – The small Himalayan country of Bhutan, mainly known for measuring national happiness instead of GDP, is the only carbon-negative country on the planet. Believe it or not, it has only had one single death from COVID-19. Is that a coincidence?

→ read full article

Deforestation, Oil Spills, and Coronavirus: Crises Converge in the Amazon
Rachel Ramirez | Grist - TRANSCEND Media Service, 1 Jun 2020

29 May 2020 – Brazil recently became the country with the second highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world, trailing only the United States. Its daily number of reported deaths was double that seen in the U.S. this week. The country has suffered roughly 400,000 confirmed cases and 25,000 deaths.

→ read full article

The World Is on Lockdown. So Where Are All the Carbon Emissions Coming from?
Shannon Osaka | Grist - TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 May 2020

27 Apr 2020 – Pedestrians have taken over city streets, people have almost entirely stopped flying, skies are blue for the first time in decades, and global CO2 emissions are on-track to drop by… about 5.5 percent. Wait, what? Appreciate the bluer skies and fresher air, while you can. But the emissions drop from the pandemic should be a warning, not a cause for celebration: a sign of how much further there is to go.

→ read full article

Volkswagen: The Scandal That Never Ends
Zoya Teirstein | Grist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 5 Feb 2018

29 Jan 2018 – The German automaker issued yet another apology today, this time for a fraudulent study the company commissioned four years ago.

→ read full article

Indescribable Feeling: We Just Hit 410 ppm of CO2 – Welcome to a Whole New World
Kate Yoder | Grist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 24 Apr 2017

21 Apr 2017 – This is not normal: We’re on track to witness a climate unseen in 50 million years by mid-century. We first hit 400 parts per million back in 2013, and that became the new norm just four years later. And on April 18 this year, as predicted, we crossed the 410 ppm threshold for the first time at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.

→ read full article

The Future Will Be Battery-Powered
Amelia Urry | Grist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 10 Apr 2017

The battery might be the least sexy piece of technology ever invented but the future will be battery-powered. It has to be. From electric cars to industrial-scale solar farms, batteries are the key to a cleaner, more efficient energy system.

→ read full article

Transcanada’s Latest Move Perfectly Illustrates Why So Many People Hate Free-Trade Deals
Katie Herzog |Grist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 4 Jul 2016

27 Jun 2016 – TransCanada is demanding that the U.S. fork over $15 billion to make up for the fact that the company didn’t get to build the Keystone XL pipeline. That’s one damned expensive temper tantrum.

→ read full article

You’re More Likely to See an Oil Industry Ad than a Climate Report on CNN
Xian Chiang-Waren, Grist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 May 2016

Planet Earth is shattering climate records left and right. But don’t expect CNN viewers to know that. Over two recent weeks, the network aired more oil industry advertising than climate change coverage — nearly five times more.

→ read full article

The Story behind Prince’s Low-Profile Generosity to Green Causes
Katie Herzog, Grist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 May 2016

“Prince heard me in the media and sent a $50,000 check to support the work I was doing. But he did all his giving completely anonymously, so I sent the check back. You never know when someone is trying to set you up — it could have been from Chevron or from a drug dealer or whatever. So then he sent the check back and I sent it back again, and then he sent it back and then I sent it back, until finally a representative called and said, ‘Will you please accept this check? I won’t tell you who it is from, but the guy’s favorite color is purple.’

→ read full article

Meet the Scientist Connecting the Dots between Air Pollution and Dementia
Clayton Aldern, Grist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 29 Feb 2016

Increasingly, research suggests a link between air pollution exposure and the risk of diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. How might this relationship be possible, and what might it mean for what the world is – or isn’t – prepared to handle in the coming decades?

→ read full article

Oil and Fracking Chemicals Spill into Colorado’s Floodwaters
John Upton, Grist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 23 Sep 2013

The floods have also triggered other problems that have gotten a lot less media attention: Fracking infrastructure has been inundated and its toxic contents have spilled out. Pipelines that transport fossil fuels are sagging and snapping under pressure. Tanks that store chemicals and polluted water are being overwhelmed and toppling over. Oil and gas wells are flooding.

→ read full article

Monsanto Virtually Gives Up On Growing GMO Crops in Europe
John Upton, Grist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 22 Jul 2013

Monsanto has pretty much given up any hope (at least for now) of selling its genetically engineered seeds for corn, sugar beets, and other crops in Europe, where opposition to GMO food is overwhelming.

→ read full article

Domesticated and Wild Bees Are Both in Trouble
Susie Cagle, Grist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 11 Mar 2013

It’s tough times for bees. Over the past few years, colony collapse disorder has wiped out some entire beekeeping operations, and scientists don’t understand or agree on the cause. In Europe, respected scientists and agencies are declaring some popular pesticides too dangerous for bees. Stateside, it’s another story. On Tuesday [5 Mar 2013], the U.S. EPA hosted a bee summit to talk about the problem.

→ read full article

Why Germany Is Phasing Out Nuclear Power
David Roberts, grist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 2 Apr 2012

The most controversial aspect of this power overhaul is Germany’s post-Fukushima decision to completely phase out nuclear power by 2020, which caused the heads of Very Serious People to explode on multiple continents. To many, passing ambitious low-carbon energy goals and then axing a good chunk of your low-carbon energy seems irrational and self-defeating.

→ read full article

Honeybee Problem Nearing a ‘Critical Point’
Claire Thompson – Grist, 23 Jan 2012

Of particular concern is a group of pesticides, chemically similar to nicotine, called neonicotinoids (neonics for short), and one in particular called clothianidin. Instead of being sprayed, neonics are used to treat seeds, so that they’re absorbed by the plant’s vascular system, and then end up attacking the central nervous systems of bees that come to collect pollen.

→ read full article

Green Cities on the Cheap: Low-Cost Solutions for a Sustainable World
Jared Green – Grist, 2 Jan 2012

Jaime Lerner was elected mayor of Curitiba, Brazil, in 1971, and reelected two more times before serving as governor of the Brazilian state of Paraná. As mayor, Lerner devised a number of low-cost solutions and innovative partnerships with the public and private companies that turned Curitiba into a model green community. He has won a number of major awards for his transportation, design, and environmental work, including the United Nations Environment Award. In 2002, Lerner was elected president of the International Union of Architects.

→ read full article

The Bugs That Ate Monsanto
Tom Laskawy, Grist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 19 Dec 2011

Now that 94 percent of the soy and 70 percent of the corn grown in the U.S. are genetically modified, Monsanto might look to some like it’s winning. But if we look a little closer, I’d say they’re holding on by a thread. Over the last several years, so-called “superweeds” have grown resistant to the herbicide RoundUp, the companion product that’s made Monsanto’s herbicide-tolerant (aka RoundUp-Ready) corn, soy, and alfalfa so popular. Those crops were supposed to be the only plants that could withstand being sprayed by the chemical. Oops.

→ read full article

Climate Policy: RIO+20 – Toward a New Green Economy—Or a Green-Washed Old Economy?
Jim Thomas – Grist, 11 Apr 2011

2012 Rio Earth summit’s focus on a green economy a threat to progress made by the 1992 original. Far from cooking up a plan to save the Earth, what may come out of the summit could instead be a deal to surrender the living world to a small cabal of bankers and engineers — one that will dump the promises of the first Rio summit along the way.

→ read full article

Have We Really Solved the Mystery Behind the Shocking Die-off of Bees?
Tom Laskawy – Grist, 20 Dec 2010

These devices throw up a toxic cloud of pesticide as they work: bees fly through the cloud and either die or take the pesticide back to the hive. Once inside, even at low doses, it can cause disorientation or, as Girolami calls it, “intoxication” of whole hives. The maker of this pesticide is Bayer CropScience. What does a corporation do when it discovers it may have developed and marketed a dangerous and potentially devastating product? Here in America, you confuse, you obfuscate, and you buy off scientists. And as Eban skillfully details, that’s exactly what Bayer has been doing for the last decade or so.

→ read full article

Sorry, New York Times: The bee die-off case is not closed
Tom Laskawy – Grist, 25 Oct 2010

Let’s be clear: The study itself makes no conclusive claims about the causes of colony collapse disorder. Eban quotes from the paper that the research does not “clearly define” that the virus/fungus combination is “a marker, a cause, or a consequence of CCD.” A scientist interviewed by Eban very helpfully offers the metaphor of HIV to describe what’s going on with bees. HIV doesn’t kill you — it’s the opportunistic infections and diseases that follow HIV’s dismantling of a sufferer’s immune system that do. In the case of bees, the virus/fungus combo are most likely the follow-on infections that kill off an already weakened hive.

→ read full article