Articles by Grist staff

There’s Other Fish in the Sea. But Not Many.

Ninety percent of the world’s largest and most economically important fish have disappeared due to a half-century of industrial fishing, according to a groundbreaking study published in today’s issue of the journal Nature. The study found that modern fishing has become so efficient that it can decimate 80 percent or more of a given species […]

Pay Dirt

The “polluter pays” principle may be languishing in the U.S. under the business-friendly Bush administration, but it’s alive and well in Europe, where the European parliament voted this week to strengthen rules to make companies pay for the environmental problems they cause. Spurred on by the recent Prestige disaster, in which a tanker spilled tens […]

Ban Rollover

Starting up what’s likely to be an ugly trade tussle, the Bush administration yesterday filed suit at the World Trade Organization against the European Union, challenging E.U. policies that severely restrict the import of genetically modified (GM) crops. U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick contends that the E.U. has in effect instituted a ban on GM […]

The Food Less Traveled

A fledgling “buy local” movement is inspiring a growing number of Americans to get more of their food from local sources and resist an increasingly globalized agriculture industry. Today produce travels an average of 1,500 to 2,500 miles to reach Americans’ plates, 25 percent farther than in 1980. Grapes, for example, make an average trek […]