Articles by Grist staff

Once in a Wild

Environmentalists, ranchers, miners, and Utah politicians have agreed for the first time ever on a plan to designate a Bureau of Land Management area in Utah as wilderness. With wide support from different interests in the state, a measure to protect 5,200 acres in eastern Utah was approved unanimously by a House Resources subcommittee, part […]

Money Makes the World Go Brown

Texas Gov. George W. Bush has raised 15 times more money from oil and gas interests than Vice President Al Gore, a total of $1.54 million for his presidential campaign. Bush’s biggest supporters over the course of his political career have been employees of Enron Oil Company, and at least 25 of his top fund-raisers […]

The Smog Days of Summer

About 117 million Americans live in areas with smoggy air, according to a report released yesterday by the Clean Air Network, a coalition of environmental and public health groups. The report found that more than half of the nearly 600 counties in the U.S. that fully monitor air quality are above the legal limit for […]

The Dry Wall of China

Desertification is spreading across northern China, caused by rampant logging, overgrazing, and the cultivation of marginal lands for farming, and exacerbated by drought. About a dozen severe sandstorms hit Beijing this spring. The village of Longbaoshan outside Beijing is threatened by a mountain of sand that’s advancing at a rate of about 30 feet a […]