Articles by Grist staff

Anti-air-travel activists stage protest on U.K. airport runway

More than 50 environmental activists from anti-air-travel group Plane Stupid were arrested Monday in a protest at Stansted Airport in the United Kingdom, some 40 miles from downtown London. The activists broke into a restricted area where planes taxi between takeoff and landing and chained and barricaded themselves in place, declaring their opposition to a […]

U.S. Justice Dept says DoD can’t refuse to clean up toxic sites

In an unexpected move this week, the U.S. Justice Department sided with the EPA in its long-running dispute with the Defense Department over clean up of three ultra-contaminated Superfund sites in Florida, Maryland, and New Jersey. In a Dec. 1 letter to the DoD, the Justice Department argued that the agency has no legal grounds […]

Are Christmas trees really ever green?

"Can you decorate your Fraser fir without getting pesticide residue in your lungs and on your skin?" The NYT answers: Sure, if the tree is certified organic by the Department of Agriculture. Or if it is a Certified Naturally Grown tree, which meets the same basic requirements: it was raised without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, […]

Big Three auto execs pledge to become greener, more profitable

In a desperate, collective plea for up to $38 billion in government aid, executives from Detroit’s Big Three automakers told a Senate committee on Thursday they would start to crank out smaller, more fuel-efficient cars and streamline their businesses to stay afloat. “Now we are absolutely committed to exceeding our customers’ expectations for quality, fuel-efficiency, […]