Writing
All of my Grist stories are available at my author page.
My writing has also been co-published in outlets like ExxonKnews, The Guardian, The Japan Times, and Teen Vogue, and syndicated in many others, including Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Canary Media, Environmental Health News, Fast Company, Gizmodo, Mother Jones, Popular Science, Rolling Stone, Scientific American, Sentient, Slate, Vox, and Yes! Magazine. See below for some recent clips.
Features
- The ‘recycled’ plastic in your shoes, shirts, and bags? It’s still destined for the landfill (Grist)
- How to create a ‘world without waste’? Here are the plastic industry’s ideas. (Grist)
- In meat- and fish-loving Japan, veganism is making a comeback (Grist, co-written with Sachi Mulkey and co-published in The Japan Times)
- Goodbye, ‘soy boys.’ Hello, swole vegans. (Grist)
- In France, zero-waste experiments tackle a tough problem: People’s habits (Grist, co-published in The Guardian and supported by the Heinrich Böll Foundation)
- What will it take to get companies to embrace reusable packaging? (Grist)
Plastics
- ‘Plastics are awesome’: Inside the Energy Department’s partnership with the plastics industry (Grist, co-reported with Emily Sanders and co-published in ExxonKnews)
- Exxon is quietly planning a new $8.6 billion plastics plant in Texas (Grist, co-reported with Tik Root)
- Over 100 countries want an ambitious plastics treaty. Oil-producing nations are getting in the way. (Grist)
- The US no longer supports capping plastic production in UN treaty (Grist)
- California sues Exxon Mobil over ‘sham’ of plastics recycling (Grist)
- ‘Sip, return, repeat’: How this California city is trying to normalize reusable cups (Grist)
Corporate accountability
- After 2 years, Coca-Cola’s promise to scale up reusable packaging is dead (Grist)
- New York’s plastic lawsuit against PepsiCo has been dismissed. What’s next? (Grist)
- Why some Starbucks locations are switching from plastic to paper cups (Grist)
- Experts say a proposed revamp to the recycling symbol is still deceptive — and probably illegal (Grist)
- Does the plastics industry support waste pickers? It’s complicated. (Grist)
- Corporate climate plans are improving, but still ‘critically insufficient’ (Grist)
Carbon markets
- At COP29, new rules for carbon markets made them even more controversial (Grist)
- A federal attempt to foster ‘high-integrity voluntary carbon markets’ falls short, experts say (Grist)
- Carbon credits are supposed to funnel money to poor countries. Do they? (Grist)
- A climate pledge verifier said it would allow more carbon offsets. Its staff revolted. (Grist)
Rights of nature
- In Canada, Indigenous advocates argue that mining companies violate the rights of nature (Grist)
- What if nature had a voice in legislation? A ‘planetary parliament’ could give it one (Grist)
- Rights-of-nature victories in Peru, Panama, and India.
Policy, lawsuits, and negotiations
- Why the shipping industry’s new carbon tax is a big deal — and still not enough (Grist)
- The world’s biggest youth climate lawsuit lost in court, but it ‘changed the world’ (Grist)
- Supreme Court declines to hear Republicans’ ‘Hail Mary’ effort to block climate lawsuits (Grist)
- Trump leaving the Paris Agreement is ‘mostly symbolic.’ What does it actually mean? (Grist)
- Trump unravels US climate agenda as he promises to ‘drill, baby, drill’ (Grist, co-reported with Naveena Sadasivam)
- In Seattle, advocacy groups pitch ‘social housing’ as a climate solution (Grist)
- EPA finalizes the nation’s first PFAS limits in drinking water (Grist, co-reported with Sachi Mulkey)
About / contact
Before Grist, I was an intern at Oregon Public Broadcasting and Living on Earth. I have a BA in Earth and planetary sciences and environmental science and public policy from Harvard University.
You can email me at jwinters [at] grist [dot] org. My secure email is jbwinters [at] pm [dot] me.
