Articles by Grist staff

Right in the Solar Plexus

From the believe-it-or-not department: To cover the costs of printing its 170-page energy plan last May, the Bush administration tapped into the Department of Energy’s solar and renewable energy and energy conservation budgets. Documents released under court order by the DOE on Monday night indicate that $135,615 of the renewables and conservation budget was spent […]

Mustard Greens

In a hard-won triumph for environmentalists, the Pentagon announced yesterday that it will use a water-neutralization process, rather than incineration, to destroy 2,600 tons of mustard gas stored at Colorado’s Pueblo Chemical Depot and other sites. The Chemical Weapons Working Group, a watchdog organization, applauded the decision, calling neutralization safe and effective. But in Oregon, […]

Foot-in-mouth Disease?

Dealing a blow to advocates of natural resource extraction in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, biologists working for the U.S. Geological Survey have produced a report finding that oil and gas drilling in the refuge could substantially threaten caribou, musk oxen, polar bears, migrating birds, and other wildlife. Although the report acknowledges that the risk […]

Dune Bugging

Almost 50,000 acres of dunes in California’s Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area would be re-opened to off-road vehicles (ORVs) under a Bureau of Land Management proposal. The area has been off-limits to the vehicles since November of 2000, when the BLM, ORV groups, and environmentalists negotiated a settlement that closed the area to protect endangered […]