Articles by Grist staff

Golden State Warrior

It was a sunny weekend for environmentalists in California, where Gov. Gray Davis (D) signed into law a measure closing a loophole that developers have exploited to avoid development restrictions and jack up property values. The loophole enabled developers to subdivide properties based on out-of-date land maps. Conservationists often wound up paying inflated prices to […]

Swedish Neatballs

Sweden is setting the world’s standard for balancing economic growth with environmental protections, according to a report released last week by the Swiss-based World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Canadian International Development Research Center. The report used standards-of-living indicators such as quality of social services, infrastructure, education, and government, as well as assessing each country’s […]

Flood Insurance

Chinese officials and the United Nations Environment Programme hope a $10 million plan to restore lakes and reduce logging and erosion will prevent a repeat of the disastrous 1998 flooding of the Yangtze River. Severe environmental degradation exacerbated the effects of heavy rainfalls that year, causing floods that killed upwards of 3,600 people, cost $31 […]

Oily Sheen

Summoning the specter of national security threats, President Bush called on the U.S. Senate yesterday to pass an energy bill that would allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Earlier this week, Senate Democrats ended committee discussion of an energy bill, calling the subject too divisive to discuss during a national crisis. Republicans […]