Articles by Grist staff

Borderline Psychosis

The U.S. and Mexico will need better land-use planning along their border over the next 20 years to avoid a host of serious environmental ills, according to a new report by a group of U.S. and Mexican universities. The area’s population could nearly double by 2020, straining already dwindling water supplies and worsening cross-border air […]

Caspar, the Friendly Town

The 300-some residents of Caspar, an unincorporated village in northern California, have drawn up detailed plans for a model sustainable community that would run largely on solar power and include an electric-vehicle charging station, lots of open space, and affordable housing. They have proposed strict land-use regulations prohibiting new buildings that would negatively affect native […]

Top Secret: You Could Die

The Clinton administration proposed a bill Friday that would let Americans living near dangerous chemicals know the casualty estimates for a worst-case accident in their region, while attempting to keep the information out of the hands of terrorists who might use it to plan an attack. The EPA last fall considered posting detailed worst-case chemical […]

Going, Going … Gabon

Even as gorillas and chimpanzees in Central Africa are being wiped out by hunters, scientists are sounding the alarm that the animals need to be saved because they may be the key to finding a cure for AIDS. In January, scientists announced that H.I.V.-1, the most common AIDS virus, came from a subspecies of chimpanzee […]