Articles by Grist staff

Pampas and Circumstances

The massive economic crisis in Argentina has had an unexpected silver lining for the environment: It has led to a surge in the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) in cars, a cleaner fuel than either diesel or gasoline. Argentina is home to the third-largest natural-gas reserves in Latin America and the world’s largest fleet […]

Gold Diggers

The California gold rush of 1849 sent would-be miners rushing to the hills and streams of the Sierra Nevada. But some of them never made it that far, stopping instead to mine gold from Death Valley. Now, a proposal by the Colorado-based Canyon Resources to expand its operations by opening a second open-pit gold mine […]

Alcoa-holics

Two of the nation’s corporate giants, Alcoa and Archer Daniels Midland, have agreed to settle charges of violating the New Source Review rules of the federal Clean Air Act by making upgrades ballparked at some $700 million, according to people familiar with the settlements. Alcoa, the world’s largest producer of aluminum, has 12 months to […]

A three-part series profiling ecological economists

In 1776, the year the Scottish economist Adam Smith invented free-market economics with his book The Wealth of Nations, the total population of the globe was less than 700 million people. The coal-hauling locomotives and steamships that were to drive the Industrial Revolution were still 30 years off. Free-market economic theory grew and flourished in […]