Articles by Grist staff

Seedy ROM

In a project likely to revolutionize the study of biology and have important impacts on international environmental policy, a group of nations this month began setting up a database where information about all named species will be recorded — in effect, a catalog of life on earth. The project — launched by the Organization for […]

I Don't Want My MTBE

An expert panel convened by the EPA plans today to recommend a substantial reduction in the use of MTBE, an additive that makes gasoline burn more cleanly, because MTBE poses serious public health risks when it leaches into water supplies. The panel will recommend that Congress ease Clean Air Act language that mandates the widespread […]

Gdansk You Very Much

Poland could get up to $213 million annually until 2007 from the European Union to clean up its environment, with the funds going primarily to combating air pollution and improving drinking water and sewage treatment. Poland wants to join the EU in 2003, but to meet the EU’s strict environmental standards, the nation will need […]

What Have They Been Smoking?

Environmentalists are up in arms over a proposal by Florida drug enforcement officials to wipe out marijuana plants with a bioherbicide, a soil-borne fungus. The state Agriculture and Environmental Protection departments have given approval for tests of the fungus in a quarantine lab. Enviros worry that the plant-killing fungus could mutate and cause diseases in […]