Articles by Grist staff

Orange You Glad?

Orange County, Calif., is generally associated with urban sprawl, not magnificent parklands — but a massive new land deal could help change that. The 4,738-acre “County Great Park” will be bigger than New York’s Central Park and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park put together, and will include riparian corridors, botanical gardens, sports and educational facilities, […]

Chipping Dale

U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth spoke in San Francisco yesterday in honor of Earth Day, but audience members might not have been very thrilled by what he had to say on behalf of the planet. Bosworth criticized environmentalists for trying to protect forests from logging and road-building projects, claiming that in fact the real […]

Spilling Over

The city of Los Angeles accepted legal responsibility yesterday for a decade’s worth of sewage spills, numbering 3,668 in all. The spills polluted streets and water bodies, in violation of both state and federal clean-water laws. After a four-year legal battle with government officials, environmental organizations, and community members, the city has finally owned up […]

John Connor, It Is Time

Australia is famous for its unusual animals (think koalas and kangaroos), but according to a new government report, thousands of the nation’s mammal, reptile, and bird species could go extinct if the pace of land-clearing continues unabated. The report, known as the “Biodiversity Audit” and leaked to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation yesterday, found that 2,891 […]