Articles by Grist staff

China Dolls Up Its Industry

A $420 million grant to China will help the nation protect the ozone layer. Some $200 million of the money, which comes from a multinational fund set up in 1987 as part of the Montreal Protocol, will be used to help 200 firms upgrade their equipment and clean up ozone-depleting industrial products. China reduced its […]

Writ from Ritt

The EU has threatened to withhold as much as $15.5 billion from a number of member states unless they comply with EU environmental laws by establishing nature reserves and other protected areas. France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Portugal have been given formal written warning from EU Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard. The crackdown follows a […]

Oh No, Mr. (Interior) Bill

A rider tacked onto the Interior Department spending bill, courtesy of Sens. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho), would stall a large federal land and wildlife management plan for 64 million acres in the Pacific Northwest. The Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project — covering federal lands in eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, Idaho, and […]

An Aphrodisiac? Ah, Baloney

Police in South Africa are trying to crack down on heavily armed poachers of abalone, a shellfish prized in China, Taiwan, and Japan as an aphrodisiac. Some marine scientists warn that South Africa’s abalone population could be virtually wiped out within five years. Meanwhile, investigators in China have broken up a massive smuggling ring that […]