Latest Articles

I'll be seeing you

It's my last day as cities editor at Grist, but I hate to say goodbye.

Biodegradable urn helps you push up daisies

Now you can say, "I'll go green over my dead body!" and not have to worry about people thinking you've lost it. Designer Martin Azua's Bios Urn pries eco-friendliness from your cold dead hands, by using cremains to help nourish a tree seed. The urn is made from cellulose, coconut fiber, and peat, and it already contains […]

Walmart to go 100 percent renewable … in Canada

As the world's biggest, union-bustingest retailer, gigantic sack of Chinese lead paint chips Walmart has the opportunity to push more money at sustainability than pretty much anybody else on the planet. Which is why the company, like IKEA before it, is committing to getting 100 percent of its power from renewable sources!

Record heat causes nation's water pipes to 'burst like geysers'

The EPA helps towns with infrastructure upgrades that can prevent the problem. Too bad politicians in Texas want to shut the agency down.

'Carbon recycling' makes fuel directly from air

At Sandia National Laboratories, a giant array of mirrors heats rings of metal oxides to 2,550 degrees F, allowing a beer-keg-size reactor to produce carbon monoxide or hydrogen gas out of CO2 or water. The result is known as syngas, and it can be further processed into the kind of hydrocarbon-based fuels (think gasoline and diesel) upon which our transportation infrastructure depends.

Safe, organic food too expensive? Eat less meat

Laments over the high cost of sustainably raised meat, poultry, and dairy products miss the bigger picture: Americans eat too much meat, period.

Hundreds of miles of new pipelines to carry Pennsylvania gas

How big is natural gas in Pennsylvania? This big, according to the Associated Press:

More than half of the interstate natural-gas pipeline projects proposed to federal energy regulators since the beginning of 2010 involve Pennsylvania — at a cost estimated at more than $2 billion.

Florida is the worst state for pedestrian safety

If you live in Florida and don't have a car, you may want to invest in a heavy steel overcoat. Florida is home to four of the top four most dangerous metropolitan areas for pedestrians -- Orlando, Tampa, Jacksonville, and Miami. In the wake of the Raquel Nelson case, the New York Times has turned its reporting eye on pedestrian fatalities, and the scene on Florida streets is pretty depressing:

Sidewalks are viewed as perks, not necessities. Crosswalks are disliked and dishonored. And many drivers maniacally speed up when they see someone crossing the street.

Your can of tuna has a dirty secret

Canned tuna, a "magical wonder fish," is sooooo cheap. Just ignore that "shadowy multinational corporation" behind the curtain, and the bloodlust of Chicken of the Sea's creepy mermaid mascot:

Watch a city grow from a tiny sprout in this beautiful video

"Lilium Urbanus" envisions the city as a botanical, flowering from seed to sprout to village to metropolis. Its creators, Anca Risca and Joji Tsuruga, told Scientific American that their daily observation of urban growth in their home city of New York inspired the comparison: We embraced the idea of urban growth and saw it as something […]