Shrimp Farming Wreaks Eco-Destruction, Group Says Shrimp farms are polluting land and oceans, destroying wetlands, and depleting wild fish stocks, wreaking environmental havoc on some of the world's poorest countries, says the nonprofit Environmental Justice Foundation. The destruction is driven by a get-rich-quick attitude among farmers and aided and abetted by governments and development organizations, said the group. Shrimp farms are frequently located in cleared mangrove forests, and the farming involves a harsh cocktail of antibiotics, fertilizers, herbicides, and other chemicals that pollute wetlands and soil. The EJF report says governments and aid agencies use shrimp farming as a quick …

Cities Bidding for 2012 Olympics Stress Green Credentials The cities hoping to host the 2012 Summer Olympics are thinking green. Juan Antonio Samaranch, former president of the International Olympic Committee, has said that the environment is "the third dimension of Olympism, the first and second being sport and culture." Most observers trace a full-blown focus on eco-consciousness at the Olympics to the 2000 Sydney, Australia, games, which featured the use of reclaimed toxic-waste sites around the city and numerous other eco-friendly elements. Eight of the nine cities vying to host the 2012 games proposed putting the Olympic Village on brownfield …

Pacific Islands Drowning in Trash Many small island nations in the Pacific Ocean are slowly being smothered by trash, precipitating a crisis that has island enviros and politicians crying out for international assistance. The islands of Kiribati, for example, site of a bloody battle between U.S. and Japanese forces in World War II, are now covered in broken bottles, aluminum cans, and plastic bags with nowhere to go. Though island governments are struggling to open landfills, progress is slow, hampered both by the poverty common in the small states, whose populations have exploded in recent decades, and the slow-to-change habits …

Russia Still Dithering Over Kyoto Russia continues to vacillate over whether to sign the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, and the stakes could not be higher. Kyoto requires that developed nations representing 55 percent of global carbon-dioxide emissions sign on before it comes into force. Currently countries responsible for 40 percent of emissions are accounted for, and the U.S., representing 30 percent of the total, has refused to sign, which leaves Russia to make or break the treaty. Different sectors of Russian society have been fiercely lobbying on the matter. Many business groups oppose the treaty, as does the Kremlin's …

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Bald Eagle No Longer Considered Threatened The American bald eagle is no longer at serious risk of extinction and will be taken off the federal endangered species list this year, Assistant Interior Secretary Craig Manson announced over the weekend. The striking national symbol's decline -- by 1963, just 417 known mating pairs of eagles remained in the continental U.S., thanks to hunters and exposure to the common pesticide DDT -- led to passage of the Endangered Species Act and a ban on DDT. Though the eagle has largely recovered, with more than 7,600 breeding pairs in the contiguous U.S., it …

What work do you do? I'm the editor of The Progressive magazine and the director of the Progressive Media Project. I am also the host of a half-hour weekly radio show unimaginatively called Progressive Radio, and I do two-minute radio commentaries five days a week at our website, which some stations pick up. In addition, I write "This Just In" commentaries several times a week for the website, and I've written more than 80 items on "McCarthyism Watch" on the site, as well. What do you really do, on a day-to-day basis? My mornings are my most efficient time. I …

Green Landscaping and Building Catches on in Cities Here at Grist, our unflagging good humor is bulletproof, but we imagine less-medicated enviros need the occasional boost. The place to get one, strangely enough, might just be in the crowded urban area nearest you. Property owners large and small are starting to think green. Urban landscape architects are getting hep to "green roofs" covered in vegetation and gardens based on native plants and wild growth. Green office towers are sprouting up all over, like the Washington, D.C., office of the National Association of Realtors, which like many green buildings is certified …

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Bush Administration Will Continue to Protect Wild Salmon Responding to a hurricane of criticism over its plans to count hatchery fish along with wild fish in determining which species to protect under the Endangered Species Act, the Bush administration is now pledging to safeguard wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest. It announced on Friday that "conservation of naturally spawning salmon and the ecosystems upon which they depend" will remain the central focus of its policy and that 25 of 26 salmon runs currently listed as endangered or threatened will likely remain so. The surprising announcement was met with guarded praise …