Articles by Grist staff

Look for the GM Label

Battle Over Genetically Modified Foods Rages On It’s been an action-packed couple of weeks in the ongoing global dispute over genetically engineered foods. Just today, a conference of 80 nations agreed on a strict set of labeling rules for international commodity shipments of GM foods — rules which will form the basis of the biodiversity-protecting […]

Soothe the Salvage Beast

Ecologists Warn Against Salvage Logging Salvage logging — harvesting burnt trees from the site of a fire — is not, contrary to public perception and federal practice, an environmentally benign method of gathering timber, write a group of forest ecologists in an article in the journal Science. Dead wood, they say, plays an important ecological […]

There’s Coal in Them Thar Hills

New Coal-Fired Power Plants on the Horizon Coal, for decades the reviled stepchild of the U.S. energy family, is about to become the prodigal son. Stoked by easy availability, the rising costs of other fuels, and a growing desire to reduce dependence on foreign oil and gas, coal is roaring back: Plans are in the […]

Every Which Way but Laos

Laos’ Natural Resources Are Rapidly Disappearing A perfect storm of widespread poverty, corrupt and inefficient communist leadership, and international indifference has made the Southeast Asian nation of Laos a virtual case study in environmental decline. Although it is one of the world’s poorest and least developed nations, Laos is rich with natural resources, which represent […]