Articles by Grist staff

No Problem Atoll

The Nature Conservancy unveiled an agreement yesterday under which it will raise $37 million to purchase and maintain the Palmyra Atoll, a privately owned cluster of pristine coral islets about 1,000 miles south of Hawaii. The conservancy wants to create a nature preserve for marine and climate research and allow limited, ecologically sound tourism on […]

Logging on the Skids

After nine years of political battles and scientific studies, the U.S. Forest Service this week released a broad management plan for California’s Sierra Nevada range that would emphasize wildlife protection and recreation over commercial logging. The proposal for managing 11 million acres of national forests would cut cattle grazing, protect most big old-growth trees, and […]

Green Mountain's Green's Mountin'

Oil giant BP Amoco and a group of unnamed investors announced yesterday that they will invest as much as $100 million in GreenMountain.com, a company that sells renewable energy and natural gas as alternatives to power from dirtier sources. GreenMountain, which already has more than 100,000 residential customers in California, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, plans […]

Celling Like Hot Cakes

Texaco yesterday announced a sizable investment in fuel-cell technology, agreeing to pay $67.3 million for a 20 percent stake in Energy Conversion Devices Inc., an alternative energy company. Texaco plans to work with ECD to develop fuel cells, which combine hydrogen and oxygen to make power, as well as other alternative fuel technologies. Fuel cells […]