Articles by Grist staff

Surveillance Says …

Brazil launched a $435 million program yesterday to fight illegal logging, mining, and drug trafficking in the Amazon rainforest, which is home to about 50 percent of the world’s plant and animal species. The program will establish an air surveillance system and send police out across the region’s 1.9 million square miles. Last year, illegal […]

Bury, Bury Good

Growing numbers of Brits and others are choosing to go to their graves more greenly, in biodegradable cardboard caskets and woodland burials that use trees as grave markers. Enviros point out that traditional burials usually involve a non-reusable wooden casket and a materials-intensive headstone, while gobbling up prime land. Cremation isn’t a green option either; […]

Forest Grumps

Planting forests may worsen climate change rather than mitigate it, according to two new studies by British researchers published in the journal Nature. One of the studies suggests that as temperatures rise, forests are likely to emit more carbon dioxide (CO2) into the air, adding to the greenhouse gases that are warming the atmosphere. A […]

Protecting Their Privates

Oregon environmentalists are lamenting the passage on Tuesday of a ballot measure that will amend the Oregon constitution to require state and local governments to pay private property owners when land-use or other regulations reduce the value of their property. Opponents argue that the property-rights, or “takings,” measure will hamper the state’s widely touted efforts […]