Articles by Grist staff

On the road to Vegas, we spot two wind farms

Todd and I left San Francisco with one thing on our minds: “Vegas, baby!” But as we drove the long, hot, dry (did I mention long?) roads to Nevada, we got distracted by something shiny! wind turbines on a hill in the distance. So we tore off onto a service road and headed up the hill. […]

Gates Foundation wants to boost local agriculture in developing nations

Local agriculture in developing nations will get a boost under an initiative unveiled Wednesday by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and United Nations World Food Program. Under the Purchase for Progress initiative, the WFP will supplement food aid with surplus crops bought at competitive prices from poor farmers. WFP currently purchases 80 percent of […]

Wal-Mart will slice use of plastic bags

Wal-Mart aims to cut plastic-bag waste in its global operations by an average 33 percent over the next five years, the retail behemoth announced Thursday at the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. And if you ever doubted that Wal-Mart is big, consider this: The move is expected to eliminate some 9 billion plastic […]

E.U. will no longer export mercury

Hold on to your thermometers: The European Union will ban exports of mercury as of March 2011. The 27-nation bloc stopped mining mercury in 2001, but its exports of the metal account for up to a quarter of global supply. The export ban will require mercury that’s no longer of service to be put into […]