Articles by Grist staff

Economies of Bale

Straw-bale construction a little less marginalized Straw-bale construction has slowly been catching on in the green-building set, but its positive performance in recent fire, durability, and eco-friendliness tests could take it to the next level. The latest was an independent fire-resistance test, which proved that the material lives up to industry standards when it’s covered […]

So Much For “Beyond Petroleum”

BP pipeline fubar fallout continues Oil giant BP is weathering a ginormous poopstorm over its discovery of severe corrosion in an Alaskan oil pipeline and subsequent announcement that it would shut down its entire Prudhoe Bay oil field — 8 percent of total U.S. production — while it repaired the damage, which could take until […]

Sardar Superstar

India dam project still hot issue after more than 20 years For citizens of India, debate over dams is soap-operatic. Take the saga of the country’s still-unfinished Sardar Sarovar dam. It has everything: protests, riots, hunger strikes, and long, protracted court battles. Proponents of the $7.7 billion dam on the Narmada River claim that, when […]

School and Unusual Punishment

Temporary deal struck to prop up rural funding amid logging-revenue decline What happens if you make funding for rural schools and roads dependent on revenues from a declining resource industry? What’s that you say? Nobody would be stupid enough to do that? Ha ha. Readers, meet the federal government. A federal program that had tied […]