Computer Manufacturers Get Low Grades on Recycling Computer makers' environmental programs generally stink, though U.S. companies -- particularly Dell and Hewlett-Packard -- are better than most, says an annual report released yesterday by the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, an enviro group based in San Jose, Calif. No company is recycling more than 2 percent of its products -- products chock-full of lead, polyvinyl chloride, mercury, and other hazardous materials -- a statistic which coalition director Ted Smith called "pathetic." Coalition researchers singled out Dell for particular praise. The company, which received terrible scores on last year's report, has stopped using …

Federal Case Against Greenpeace Thrown Out of Court The U.S. government's unusual criminal suit against Greenpeace USA was rather unceremoniously booted from federal court yesterday by U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan. In a rare "directed verdict," the judge found the group not guilty midway through the trial, after the prosecution had presented its case but before the group's lawyers presented any defense. The case revolved around two members of Greenpeace who boarded a ship near the Port of Miami-Dade to protest its load of Amazonian mahogany. In a highly atypical move, government prosecutors sought to indict not just the individual …

Humans Affecting Evolution of Other Species Lay scientists tend to think of evolution as a glacially slow process, with changes measured in hundreds of thousands of years, not decades. However, growing collaboration between ecologists and evolutionary biologists is highlighting a phenomenon called "contemporary evolution" -- and it ain't pretty. Turns out, by culling the largest, healthiest, and most robust specimens from a species, human beings can precipitate a sort of rapid devolution, an evolutionary trend toward smaller, weaker populations that works over generations, not centuries. The phenomenon can be observed across the animal world -- for example, hunters have left …

Organic Lawn Care Taking Off With the U.S. adding some 2 million acres of residential property a year, lawns are becoming a significant environmental issue. In addition to sucking up water -- the average lawn drinks about 10,000 gallons of water over and above rainfall, says the U.S. EPA -- lawns are frequently doused with fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides that pollute groundwater, kill worms and other small creatures, and can slowly poison kids and pets. Add in gas-guzzling, pollutant-spewing mowers and those lawns aren't looking so green after all. Thankfully, organic lawn care is growing in popularity. Recently, a group …

Survey Finds Increasing Corporate Attention to Climate Change Climate change seems to be climbing the corporate agenda. An annual survey called the Carbon Disclosure Project -- sponsored by a group of more than 90 institutional investors that collectively control some $10 trillion in assets -- received nearly three times more responses this year than last year. Companies described their efforts to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, control business risks connected to climate change, and develop new business opportunities related to climate change. The survey enforced the conventional wisdom that European firms are acting more aggressively on the issue than U.S. companies, but …

Activist Efforts to Pressure Corporations Find Some Success Speaking of corporations, it seems they may be more amenable to reforming their ways than governments -- and with that in mind, activist groups are seeking eco-friendly commitments from companies. One group that's had notable success is the Rainforest Action Network: In January, the group persuaded Citibank, the largest U.S. bank, to tighten lending standards based on environmental principles. This week, the second-largest U.S. bank, Bank of America, signed on with an even greater commitment, pledging not to fund oil and gas exploration, mining or logging in old-growth tropical rainforests, or companies …

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 …

European Union Ends Ban on Genetically Modified Food The European Union today approved the import of a genetically modified, insect-resistant strain of sweet corn, thereby ending its six-year ban on new biotech foods. For now the corn can only be imported, not grown in Europe, but an application for its cultivation is pending -- one of 33 applications for cultivation or breeding of biotech crops in Europe. The constituent E.U. governments were bitterly deadlocked on the issue, but the E.U. executive body in Brussels came down on the side of biotech. David Byrne, the E.U. commissioner for health and consumer …

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 …