This story is a collaboration between Vox and Grist and builds on Expecting worse: Giving birth on a planet in crisis, a project by Vox, Grist, and The 19th that examines how climate change impacts reproductive health — from menstruation to conception to birth. Explore the full series here. Climate change poses unique threats to some of the most...
Plastic pollution is toxic and everywhere. Now, legal experts say it’s a human rights violation.
Plastics don’t just pose a threat to the marine environment and people’s health; they jeopardize basic human rights. This is the framing that a growing number of legal experts, policymakers, and environmental groups are using in conversations about a proposed United Nations treaty to “end plastic pollution,” which is undergoing...
Health was supposed to be central to the UN plastics treaty. Now it’s up for debate.
Since negotiations for a United Nations treaty to address plastic pollution began more than three years ago, protecting human health has risen to the top of many countries’ priority lists. This is partly because the science on the issue has evolved so rapidly. There are now thousands of scientific papers...
Two years after a wildfire took everything, Maui homeowners are facing a new threat: Foreclosure
As a Native Hawaiian teenager growing up in West Maui, Mikey Burke couldn’t wait to leave. “All my life, I thought I was bigger than this town, bigger than the village, and I was going to go somewhere and make something of myself,” she said. Then she went to college...
Homeowners affected by the 2023 Maui wildfires: Here’s how to keep and rebuild your home
Two years after the devastating 2023 Maui wildfires, homeowners may be facing the prospect of repaying mortgage loans previously in forbearance. Grist has compiled tips and resources to help homeowners avoid foreclosure. Jump to: ↓ Funding for homeowners affected by the 2023 Maui wildfires↓ Tips on dealing with your mortgage...
Illegal price-gouging is rampant after disasters. Can it be stopped?
Last January, a series of massive wildfires broke out across the Los Angeles area, fueled by high winds and dry temperatures. The fires raged for weeks, incinerating entire neighborhoods in the wealthy Pacific Palisades and in middle-class Altadena. They killed at least 30 people and destroyed at least 10,000 homes....
A look at the growing ‘disaster economy’ turning crisis into cash
In early July, as the torrential rain that unleashed deadly flash flooding in the Texas Hill Country started to abate, a Kerr County resident standing on a bridge filmed something floating toward him through the trees. It was a cream-colored, ranch-style house with black trim — so perfectly intact it...
The art of a plastics treaty: How sculptures, collages, and poetry have influenced global talks
Nearly every day since July 31, Benjamin Von Wong has been surrounding his 20-foot-tall art installation, “The Thinker’s Burden,” with a little more plastic trash. By Thursday, parts of it could be totally obscured beneath a mountain of garbage in front of the Palais des Nations in Geneva. Von Wong,...
Tribal nations scramble to save clean energy projects as federal support vanishes
Cody Two Bear, who is Standing Rock Sioux, served on his tribal council during the Dakota Access pipeline protests in 2017. Growing up in a community powered by coal, the experience was transformative. “I’ve seen the energy extraction that has placed a toll significantly on tribal nations when it comes...
Tracking sea turtles is a long, slow process that just might keep them alive
This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and WABE, Atlanta’s NPR station. In the middle of a steamy July night on the Wassaw Island beach, near Savannah, Georgia, volunteer Gabi Steinbach plunged her arm shoulder-deep in the sand to reach a loggerhead sea turtle nest that hatched...