Articles by Grist staff

UN unveils ambitious ‘green’ food programme

NAIROBI — The UN Environment Programme has unveiled an ambitious seven-point plan to feed the world without polluting it further by making better use of resources and cutting down on massive waste. A survey of the current state of food production and consumption released to a forum of the Kenya-based UNEP and world environment ministers […]

The case for small-scale fishing communities

Over on the Foreign Policy website, Daniel Pauly of The Sea Around Us Project has an excellent set of info graphics on the dismal state of the globe's fisheries. 

The whole thing should be studied and gaped at by anyone who values the oceans as living ecosystems. You should know, for example, if you don't already, that the world's appetite for sushi has driven three species of bluefin tuna to "near extinction," and that it will take decades to revive them -- if and only if we "stop eating them now."

But what really reeled me in (sorry, everyone) was the comparison between small-scale and large-scale fishing operations. Turns out that small operations are actually much more efficient. Key fact:

Nearly 1,500 more cars in Beijing daily

BEIJING — Nearly 1,500 cars a day have been added to Beijing’s streets since the start of the year, state media said on Tuesday, indicating new curbs on driving had not dampened the desire for automobiles. The already gridlocked and heavily polluted Chinese capital registered 65,970 new motor vehicles in the first 45 days of […]

Thomas Friedman enthuses over 'eco-friendly alternatives to fertilizers'

It was a Thomas Friedman column like so many others: the pundit careens through the roads of India, breathlessly marveling at the innovation he sees. Ain't globalization ... awesome?

But this is Thomas Friedman 2.0, green version; this time, he's not being squired about by a loquacious and colorful local taxi driver, but rather by a pair of young Yalies in a "a plug-in electric car that is also powered by rooftop solar panels." And rather than gape slack-jawed at some software wizard's handiwork or a gleaming new factory, the pundit is bowled over by stuff like "organic farming in Andhra Pradesh, or using neem and garlic as pesticide."

And that's not all. Friedman and his entourage visit a "local prince's palace to recharge their cars," and discover that his highness' business was "cultivating worms and selling them as eco-friendly alternatives to chemical fertilizers."

Friedman once proclaimed that prospects for world peace hinged on dotting the globe with McDonald's franchises. Now he's blustering over organic farming. It's enough to make you gush about universal progress.