Articles by Grist staff

Activists lead a virtual walking tour of their L.A. neighborhood

Pacoima, Calif., a largely Latino community on the north end of Los Angeles, is laden with freeways, airports, power plants, chemical manufacturers, and landfills. But residents intent on making their neighborhood a cleaner, safer place to live have teamed up through the nonprofit Pacoima Beautiful. They're working to prevent lead poisoning, clean up trash, repair heavily polluting cars, and turn an asphalt recycling plant into a park. Marlene Grossman and other community activists lead a walking tour of the neighborhood.

Rural solar advocate Jason Edens answers readers’ questions

As he's built up his Minnesota nonprofit that installs solar systems for low-income households, Jason Edens, this week's InterActivist, has gone from solar activist to solar expert. And it's a good thing: readers this week barraged him with questions about all things solar. He shines a light on topics ranging from DIY solar-system installation to solar ovens -- and he's got the scoop on web resources and other tools that can help you calculate your solar-power potential as well as costs, savings, emissions reductions, and more.

A final word on our Poverty & the Environment series

On this, the final day of our seven-week Poverty & the Environment series, Grist editor at large Kathryn Schulz steps back to take a big-picture look at the challenges we've been covering and the path toward meaningful social change. She also picks her highlights from the series, and invites you to do the same.

What Fresh Eliot Is This?

Spitzer claims green mantle in race for governor of New York As attorney general of New York, Eliot Spitzer (D) has garnered a reputation for many things, but subtlety is not one of them. So it’s fitting that he kicked off the first big environmental speech of his gubernatorial campaign with this: “George Bush is, […]