Articles by Grist staff

Coca Is It!

Efforts by the United States to combat cocaine production in Colombia by spraying coca crops with herbicides are coming up against a provision requiring the spraying to meet the same safety standards as those in the U.S. Translation: The U.S. EPA must certify that the spraying “does not pose unreasonable risks or adverse effects to […]

Desperately Seeking Snoozin’

Despite mounting evidence that global warming has already begun to exact steep tolls on the environment, the Bush administration told Congress yesterday that it needs up to five years of additional scientific research before it will be ready to formulate a plan to address climate change. Speaking in front of the House Science Committee, Commerce […]

A Thousand Acres … Well, Make That 4.7

Global standards of living will plummet by mid-century unless human beings drastically decrease their use of natural resources, according to a report issued yesterday by the World Wildlife Fund. The main culprits in the overuse of resources are the world’s richest countries: the U.S., Canada, Japan, and most of Western Europe, according to “Living Planet […]

Lima Beaned

Roughly 1,000 Peruvian peasants arrived in their nation’s capital this week to demand that the government take action against contamination or seizure of land by mining companies. Peru is the world’s fifth-largest producer of copper and eighth-largest producer of gold, and the mining industry is responsible for half of the nation’s annual export income. But […]