Grist’s Sarah Kraybill Updates the Green Gift List

You can’t have too much of a good thing. This became apparent after the publication of the Grist Gift Rapt gift guide, when eager readers began inundating us with further suggestions for gifts. Hence I, one half of the brilliant Sarahs who brought you the gift guide, have taken it upon myself (at the urging of my editor, whose advice I have love to follow) to offer up more gift ideas. Because really, you can’t have too many gifts! (Calm yourself, hypersensitive non-consumers, it’s a joke.)

This week, Grist’s Sarah van Schagen and Katharine Wroth deliver five environmental stories that may have slipped under your radar.

1) Heart your engines

Tired of pretty-boy actors flashing their newfangled wheels? Here’s something grittier: hybrids may be coming to a Formula One track near you. It makes sense, says one rep, since “Formula One is all about efficiency.” Well, that and the fiery crashes.

It’s a brand-new year, full of rosy promise and fresh starts. And maybe new appliances. One reader is planning to ditch her old washing machine for a more efficient model, but she’s wondering if the e

Have population issues become the third rail of environmental activism? Curbing runaway growth in human numbers was once a key tenet in the green platform, but these days many eco-groups

Umbra on Green Roofs

You see them sprouting up more and more: rooftops covered with growing plants. We’re not talking ferns in pots, here—we’re talking grasses and other hardy vegetation taking root right there on the roof. Today, a reader wonders whether she ought to shed her shingles and go green. In response, advice maven Umbra Fisk climbs up on her ladder to poke around the topic.

Two women investigate the effects of pesticides on our lives.

Pesticides have infiltrated our lives in ways we rarely think about. Ever since World War II-era manufacturers realized the wonders of synthetics, we’ve relied on chemicals to make our apples spotless, our lawns green, and our homes critter-free. But what are the risks of living with these toxins?

Today, two women share the results of their investigations into that very question. In a collection of striking photos, Laurie Tümer exposes the ways that pesticides get around. And in an essay that’s both personal and analytical, Audrey Schulman describes how pesticide manufacturers get to police their own products—and how her young sons may be paying the price.