Articles by Grist staff

A Current Affair

Eleven months and 1,243 miles later, Christopher Swain has become the first person ever to swim the length of the Columbia River. Swain, 35, embarked on his landmark adventure to draw attention to the desperate environmental straits of the river, which is threatened by dams and pollutants. The Portland native endured 10-foot swells, 38-degree water […]

Label of Love

European lawmakers today adopted new food-labeling rules that could pave the way for lifting a European Union-wide ban on genetically modified (GM) products. The new rules will require labels for food and animal feed containing at least 0.9 percent GM ingredients. Though the move may lead to the opening of E.U. markets to GM foods, […]

Spirited Away

Teshima Island — one of many islands in Japan’s Inland Sea, where the nation’s first national park was established — has for decades served as a dumping ground for trash and toxic waste. The practice was illegal, but advantageous for the nation’s powerful industries (and, according to rumor, its powerful mob). Now, after a 25-year […]

Blind Spot

Controversy is roiling among scientists about the wisdom of focusing conservation efforts on protecting “hot spots,” areas that cover just 1.4 percent of the Earth’s terrestrial surface but are home to nearly half of all land-based plant species and more than a third of all land animal species. Since 1988, when biologist Norman Myers and […]