Articles by Grist staff

Victor Victorious

Mexico’s environmental minister, Victor Lichtinger, is trying to slow down sprawl by actually enforcing environmental laws on the books. For example, he has closed or suspended 19 hotel and condo developments, including a 1,400-room complex that would have been built alongside a federally protected sea turtle sanctuary in Cancun. Lichtinger said his moves were meant […]

Sitting By a Docket of the Bay

In response to a lawsuit brought by enviros, the U.S. EPA yesterday rejected the San Francisco Bay area’s plan to clean up its smog-laden air. Local air-quality officials must now come up with a plan that satisfies the feds by next January, or risk losing more than $1 billion in federal highway dollars. Under the […]

Do You Seed What I Seed

Sixty-three percent of Canadians would be less likely to buy a genetically engineered food item than a conventional one, according to a poll released today. The biotech industry is listening. Faced with increasingly skeptical consumers and tighter regulations worldwide, the industry is scaling back its plans, bypassing most genetically engineered crops in favor of big […]

Wall-to-wall Carping

Can a 12,000-square-foot house really be eco-friendly? What about Bill Gates’s 40,000-square-foot house built of salvaged wood? Architect Will Bruder says adding green features like geothermal heating and solar panels to mongo homes with five-car garages is merely a way “to rationalize decadent expenditures.” Daniel Chiras, an enviro professor, says, “[I]f it’s a 5,000-square-foot-house, it […]