Articles by Grist staff

Dorm!!!

Northland College in Ashland, Wis., is giving 90 students the chance to live in one of the most eco-friendly dorms in the U.S. The $4.1 million Environmental Living and Learning Center, opened in 1998, features waterless composting toilets and furniture and countertops made from recycled material. A 20-kilowatt wind tower and solar panels provide about […]

Reid It and Weep

The annual rider battle is in full swing, with a number of lawmakers in Washington., D.C, trying to attach pieces of anti-environmental legislation to large, must-pass government funding bills. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has tacked a rider onto an Interior Department spending bill that would block federal agencies from adopting tough new rules governing hard-rock […]

Heard It Through the Pipeline

With wholesale prices for natural gas doubling in the last year, environmental concerns are taking a back seat as energy companies make plans to build one, maybe two, pipelines to carry gas from beneath the Arctic Ocean to population centers. Native groups that once opposed development are now seeing economic opportunities. Greenpeace opposes the idea […]

The Nitro of the Living Dead

In the past few decades, industrialization, population growth, and the heavy use of chemical fertilizers have doubled the amount of nitrogen in circulation, contributing to environmental problems worldwide and possibly human health problems like cancer and memory failure, reports the Baltimore Sun in a five-day series. Hardest hit are coastal bays and oceans — deadly […]