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Take the Mahogany and Run

Get the Bali Rolling

The fate of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August, could rest on a meeting that opened yesterday on the Indonesian island of Bali. The U.N.-sponsored meeting, which runs for two weeks, aims to smooth out differences among nations on how to achieve the twin and rather […]

Inuit Intuition

There is no word in the Inuit language for a robin, but suddenly, there are robins in Inuit territory — the vast, frozen lands of the Arctic. Mostly frozen, that is; this spring, there are bare spots in the tundra snow, just one of many signs that the far north is thawing. Other signs include […]

Fischler-ing for Trouble

The E.U. has announced a proposal to overhaul Europe’s fisheries policy, a move that would save endangered species but cost some 28,000 jobs. The reforms would entail cutting the size of the fishing fleet by 8.5 percent, a reduction that E.U. Fisheries Commissioner Franz Fischler called necessary for the future of European fishing. “Either we […]

Gift Rap

So far, the first-ever Grist fundraising drive has been an unprecedented success. (eGrants.org, the organization that’s making it possible to do fancy things like process your online credit card donations safely and securely, wants to know what the heck we’ve done to inspire such a love-in among our readers.) Donors have sent enthusiastic notes saying […]

It’s a Criming Shame

Environmental crimes are the train robberies of the 21st century: High-profit and low-risk, they are generally carried out by perpetrators that are better informed, better organized, and better funded than law enforcement agencies. That was the message delivered by the Environmental Investigation Agency at a Royal Institute of International Affairs seminar held yesterday in London, […]

William Faries, environmental journalist

Thanks to a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, William Faries is currently working as an environmental journalist for the Jakarta, Indonesia-based Tempo magazine. This week, he is reporting from Bali, site of the final preparatory meeting for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held in South Africa this August. Tuesday, 28 May […]

TRI a Little Tenderness

The amount of toxic chemicals released into the environment dropped 8 percent in 2000, continuing a decade-long trend of declining industrial pollution, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. EPA. The Toxics Release Inventory compiles data from more than 23,000 factories, refineries, hard-rock mines, power plants, and chemical manufacturers, which together reported pumping […]

Taipei Personalities

More than 200 former employees of an RCA television and semiconductor plant in northern Taiwan have died of cancer and at least 1,000 others are suffering from the disease, in what industry watchdogs are calling the worst cancer cluster in the history of high-tech. A group of former plant workers arrived in Silicon Valley yesterday […]

Graceless Slick

Massive ships spilling sheets of oil across the sea might make for dramatic photo ops — yet the vast majority of oil pollution in North America comes not from leaking oil rigs or troubled tankers, but rather from thousands of small, diverse sources, most of them on the land, according to a new report by […]