Articles by Grist staff

Vote Surly, Vote Often

Aluminum smelting defining Iceland elections You no doubt know that Iceland’s elections are coming up on May 12. But here’s something you may not know: the country’s aluminum-smelting boom has become a key issue in the race. With three smelters up and running and three more planned, fans and foes alike are fired up. A […]

The Gothman Prophecies

New York City mayor unveils ambitious sustainability plans New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg used Earth Day to announce plans to make his burg bloom. The comprehensive “PlaNYC” outlines 127 green dreams, including a congestion charge for lower Manhattan that would — like programs in London and Singapore — see drivers cough up a fee […]

Students ask candidates the tough questions

Starting this weekend, students across the country will begin accosting politely approaching presidential candidates and asking them to share their plans on global warming. The effort is part of a new national campaign called "What’s Your Plan?" by The Student PIRGs and a coalition of other eco-groups. Their hope is that by trailing the candidates […]

An expedition to see critters and talk freshwater

Mary Pearl is the president of Wildlife Trust, cofounder of its Consortium for Conservation Medicine, and an adjunct research scientist at Columbia University. Over the next week, she'll be traveling in the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador with a boat full of scientists, conservationists, and business leaders to forge partnerships and develop solutions to the global freshwater crisis. This is the first of her dispatches from the journey.

Claudio Padua and I hatched a crazy idea last year, and at this moment we are living with the consequences. Claudio directs research at Brazil's Institute for Ecological Research (IPE), and I run the organization Wildlife Trust, which is based in New York. Together, we coordinate an entity known as the Wildlife Trust Alliance. The alliance is an egalitarian network of leading research-based conservation organizations around the world. The 14 independent groups each set their own strategies and annual conservation research and action agendas, and come together annually to identify problems we can address as a team, exchange experiences, and make plans for all kinds of collaborations.

After last year's meeting, Claudio and I decided to bring together members of the Wildlife Trust Alliance and a group of international business leaders to build partnerships between researchers and conservationists and those who can provide advice and support to help them succeed.