If you plan to have sex anytime soon, let's hope it's not in Niger, Africa. According to the nonprofit organization Save the Children, just 4 percent of couples in Niger have access to birth control. Although the situation in this West African country is extreme, more than 125 million couples worldwide -- most of them in developing countries -- cannot get contraceptives. Some of the children that have resulted from these couplings were wanted and some were not, but one thing is certain: Lack of access to birth control increases the burden on already strained parents and on the global …

Canada Unveils $1B Plan to Address Climate Change Canada is stepping up to the plate to tackle climate change -- or at least emerging from the dugout. Prime Minister Jean Chretien yesterday unveiled a nearly $1 billion package aimed at helping the nation lower its emissions of greenhouse gases. The plan includes incentives for individuals and businesses to make their homes and buildings more energy-efficient, subsidies for the fuel-cell and ethanol industries, and money to assist provinces and aboriginal communities in launching emission-reduction initiatives. Still, Canada has lots more to do in order to meet its commitments under the Kyoto …

Automakers Drop Longstanding Suit Over California's Car-Emissions Rule Clearing the way for more clean cars in California, two major automakers have agreed to settle a lawsuit over the state's landmark regulation that calls for increased production of low-emission and zero-emission cars and trucks between 2005 and 2020. General Motors and DaimlerChrysler will now join other automakers in preparing to sell millions of less-polluting vehicles in California to help the state tackle its infamous air pollution problem. As one of the world's largest vehicle markets, California has great influence over the worldwide auto industry; New York and Massachusetts have previously announced …

California Cancels Use of Prison Labor to Recycle Electronics California will no longer use underpaid federal prisoners to recycle the tons of potentially dangerous electronics discarded by state workers. The decision to stop shipping e-waste to prisons came in response to pressure from environmental and labor activists, who also successfully protested a similar arrangement by Dell, the largest computer maker in the U.S., which canceled its prison-labor recycling program last month. California plans to hire a private recycler instead, a move that was greeted as "great news for the real e-waste recycling industry," according to Mark Murray, director of Californians …

Former Interior Secretaries Excoriate Plan to Privatize Park Service "Radical," "reckless," "hellbent" -- those were some of the words Bruce Babbitt and Stewart Udall used to describe the Bush administration's plan to privatize much of the National Park Service. Prior to this week, the two former secretaries of the Interior Department -- both of them Arizona Democrats -- chose to bite their tongues rather than criticize the White House, but the privatization plan was, they said, the last straw. Under the plan, 70 percent of full-time park service jobs, including rangers, scientists, and museum curators, could be replaced by private-sector …

British Polluters Undeterred by Penalties Some of the biggest and best known companies in the United Kingdom are also some of its worst polluters -- but neither financial penalties nor shame seem able to keep them in line, according to the Environment Agency's fifth annual Spotlight report on the environmental violations of companies in England and Wales. For the billion-dollar businesses in question, the fines are insignificant; for the environment, the consequences are far more serious. Fish are dying by the thousands, tons of toxic waste are being dumped in rivers and inner cities, groundwater is being poisoned -- the …

Last January, inspectors with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration paid a visit to the University of Illinois, where researchers have been studying the DNA of pigs. The pig project, based in Champaign-Urbana, is one of dozens of experiments being conducted across the country in which scientists are altering the genetic structure of animals in hopes of making them fatter, healthier, and more profitable. Pigging out. Photo: USDA. In the University of Illinois project, cow genes were inserted into sows to increase their milk production, and a synthetic gene was added to make milk digestion easier for the piglets, thereby …

Two ambitious clean-energy coalitions made headlines this month, sweeping out from under the rug vital and far-reaching environmental issues that the Bush administration has steadfastly ignored. The Energy Future Coalition, boasting endorsements from heavies on both sides of the party line as well as from high-profile industry and environmental interests, called for a one-third reduction in U.S. oil consumption and a one-third reduction in carbon dioxide emissions over the next 25 years. At the same time (though in a completely unrelated effort), the Apollo Alliance, a labor-environmental coalition endorsed by a dozen influential unions, called for a 10-year, $300 billion …

In a finding that undermines one key argument in favor of genetically modified (GM) crops, researchers at Iowa State University have discovered that a number of "superweeds" have developed a resistance to Monsanto's widely used Roundup herbicide. Monsanto has engineered crops that are tolerant of Roundup, the idea being that the chemical would kill everything in a field but the desired crop, thereby freeing farmers from using additional herbicides and leading to an overall decrease in the use of chemicals. But if superweeds gain a foothold, farmers will again need other herbicides. "Companies like Monsanto have spun GM crops and …

By the end of the year, only $28 million will be left in the U.S. EPA's Superfund account. Superfund pays for the reclamation of abandoned toxic-waste sites, and $28 million barely affords a study just to figure out how to clean up one of the 1,200 deserted dumps wasting away in American communities. Money's tight to fund cleanups of Superfund sites like this one in Pennsylvania. Photo: U.S. EPA. How did Superfund, which used to have an annual account ledger of $1.5 billion, end up functionally bankrupt? Going back to 1995, the Republican-controlled Congress killed off the corporate "polluter tax" …