Articles by Grist staff

A New Lease on Life

Washington, D.C.-based Conservation International is trying a new approach to saving natural areas in developing countries: leasing trees. CI is working on a deal to buy the logging rights for up to 25 years for 200,000 acres of pristine rainforest in southern Guyana in South America, planning to spend several million dollars to protect the […]

MTVP

In an MTV town meeting yesterday in Ann Arbor, Mich., Al Gore said that after long deliberation he had sided with paper bags over plastic, more out of personal preference than solid scientific evidence that plastic was worse for the environment. On a more serious note, one student tempted to vote for Ralph Nader in […]

Cruise Controls

The U.S. Justice Department has joined Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles (D) and environmentalists in criticizing proposed cruise ship legislation sponsored by Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), saying it would legalize the dumping at sea of toxic chemicals like the dry-cleaning solvent PERC. Department officials said the new legislation would make prosecutions difficult or impossible by contradicting […]

Time for a Czech Up

Thousands of Austrian environmental activists blocked border crossings between their country and the Czech Republic on Friday to protest a new Czech nuclear power plant just 40 miles from the Austrian border that is scheduled to start up soon. Austria, which decided to be nuke-free in 1978, is also threatening to try to block the […]