Articles by Grist staff

Surprise-Side Economics

While cutting back on mercury at home, the U.S. exports it abroad Like Mickey said, it’s a small world after all, and pollution that gets exported can end up coming back home. Case in point: mercury, a neurotoxin especially dangerous to children and women of childbearing age. The U.S. is cutting down on the use […]

Tune In to Morro

Enviros buy out trawlers in California bay Attempting to conserve rapidly vanishing bottom-dwelling fish stocks off the central California coast, Environmental Defense and The Nature Conservancy have teamed with bottom-trawling fishers to create three “no-trawl zones” covering a total of nearly 6,000 square miles. In exchange for their endorsement, the fishers in California’s Morro Bay […]

Diamond’s Err Forever

Dioxin-laced Passaic River remains uncleaned by corporations that fouled it For today’s tale of corporate skullduggery and government negligence, we take you to the lovely state of New Jersey. For almost 20 years beginning in the early ’50s, the Diamond Shamrock Chemicals Co. — manufacturer of pesticides like DDT and Agent Orange — dumped its […]

Brian F. Keane, renewable-energy marketer, answers questions

Brian Keane. What’s your job title? I’m president of SmartPower. What does your organization do? SmartPower is a national nonprofit marketing campaign that promotes the use of clean, renewable energy as a safe, readily available alternative to coal, oil, and other limited sources of power. In short, we’re the “Got Milk” people for wind, solar, […]