Articles by Grist staff

Crime Doesn't Pay — But Criminals Do

The European Commission endorsed plans yesterday to make polluting companies and individuals legally responsible for the cost of the damage they cause. The commission will now draft a new “polluter pays” directive for the European Union, intended to end the notion that society as a whole must bear the cost of human-caused environmental disasters. Individual […]

Green Apple

The Battery Park City Authority in New York City is holding a competition asking developers to submit plans for the nation’s first eco-friendly residential high-rise. The building must incorporate such features as solar panels, fuel cells, non-toxic and recycled building materials, roof-top gardens, and gray-water systems, which reuse water collected from sinks, showers, and laundry […]

Seeking Closure

Enviros are calling on Texas to tighten shrimping restrictions on the Gulf Coast to protect sea turtles, including the endangered Kemp’s ridley turtle. In 1999, shrimp fishing was responsible for the stranding of 95 Kemp’s ridley turtles and 355 other turtles, and the vast majority of them died, according to members of the Sierra Club […]

City Sickers

Air pollution is rampant in Russia, where about 120 cities have noxious gases in the air at more than five times acceptable limits, according to the head of the nation’s ecology committee. In all, 61 million people living in 185 cities — more than one-third of Russians — breathe air with high noxious gas levels. […]