Articles by Grist staff

WTO Calls Kettle Black

While enviros prepare to raise Cain during the World Trade Organization talks starting in Seattle on November 30, the WTO yesterday came out with a report saying that ending government subsidies to energy, fishing, and farming industries could give a big boost to environmental protection. In a set of recommendations for the WTO’s 134 member […]

Courting Disaster

The Supreme Court today will hear arguments in a case that could whittle down the power of citizens to file lawsuits against polluters. In 1992, Friends of the Earth sued a South Carolina hazardous-waste-incineration company, Laidlaw Environmental Services, for dumping excessive amounts of mercury in a nearby river. The company stopped polluting after the suit […]

Mark Ritchie, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Mark Ritchie is president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, based in Minneapolis, Minn., which works to keep family farmers on the land. He also serves as national co-chair of Sustainable America and director of the International Forum on Food and Agriculture, and is on the boards of Mothers and Others, Libraries for […]

Forest Gumption

Ever eager to leave a green legacy, Pres. Clinton will announce an initiative next week to protect up to 40 million acres of national forest land in 35 states from commercial development. The directive will ask the U.S. Forest Service to analyze how best to protect forest land that is still undeveloped and roadless, much […]