Articles by Grist staff

Gold Substandard

Unlawful Gold Mining Threatens Brazilian Amazon Illegal gold mining in the rivers of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is on the upswing and could mean bad news for the environment. Thousands of poor small-scale miners, called garimpeiros, risk their lives to get at traces of gold at the bottom of rivers, sometimes employing equipment as basic as […]

Mike Simpson, One Sky

Mike Simpson works on international environmental projects with partners in West Africa and Latin America. He is the executive director of One Sky — The Canadian Institute of Sustainable Living in the rural, northern town of Smithers, British Columbia. Monday, 10 Nov 2003 EN ROUTE TO SIERRA LEONE It’s the bags that always get me […]

Ghost Busters

Contaminated U.S. Ships Cause a Stir in Britain Controversy continues to swirl around four highly contaminated former U.S. Navy vessels — dubbed “ghost ships” — that are making their way across the Atlantic* to Hartlepool, England, where a British company has a contract to dismantle them. The first two toxin-tainted ships are being towed through […]

Strawberry Yields Forever

U.S. Could Endanger Ozone Layer with Push for Pesticide Use In pushing for continued use of a controversial pesticide, the Bush administration could undermine international efforts to protect the ozone layer. The Montreal Protocol, a 1987 treaty ratified by the U.S. and other industrialized nations, calls for phasing out the ozone-depleting pesticide methyl bromide by […]