For the first time, the Bush administration has acknowledged, in a report to the U.N., that climate change is most likely caused by human activity and will have far-reaching effects on the American environment. Although the report marks a significant shift in the administration's rhetoric -- Bushies had heretofore maintained the need for more research before drawing conclusions about climate change -- it is unlikely to precipitate a corresponding change in policy. Rather than recommending reductions in greenhouse gases to control global warming, the report suggests adapting to the inevitable, including heat waves, the disruption of snow-fed water supplies, and …

Back in March, Eric Schaeffer made a big media splash by resigning after years as head of enforcement at the U.S. EPA over differences with the Bush administration's environmental policies. But the truth is that Schaeffer was just the tip of the iceberg. From senior career administrators to lawyers to leading scientists, a number of longtime, highly respected officials have left environmental jobs in the administration in protest. Take James Furnish, a politically conservative deputy chief of the U.S. Forest Service with more than 30 years of experience, who left over the administration's pro-development philosophy and unwillingness to listen to …

This week's announcement by President Bush that his administration would spend $235 million to protect Florida's pristine areas from oil and gas drilling has aroused both the ire and the envy of California environmentalists, who saw the deal as a family favor designed to aid the reelection bid of First Brother and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R). California greenies, who have been fighting to stop 36 offshore drilling leases, continue to hope that the president might seek to boost his own reelection prospects by currying favor in their state as well. They say that an oil spill from one of …

Some of Florida's natural wonders will be protected from oil and gas drilling, thanks to two major deals announced yesterday by President Bush. The first, a completed $115 million buy-back of drilling leases off the shores of Pensacola, will protect the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico, while the second, which offers companies a total of $120 million in cash or future drilling credits in exchange for retiring their mineral rights in the Everglades, must be approved by Congress. Environmentalists rejoiced over both deals, but it wasn't lost on anyone that the agreements were extraordinarily at odds with the Bush …

Environmental crimes are the train robberies of the 21st century: High-profit and low-risk, they are generally carried out by perpetrators that are better informed, better organized, and better funded than law enforcement agencies. That was the message delivered by the Environmental Investigation Agency at a Royal Institute of International Affairs seminar held yesterday in London, where speakers warned that international environmental criminals are lining their pockets with lucrative and illegal activities such as dumping toxic waste, manufacturing and selling illicit chemicals, trading in endangered species, and illegal logging. Gavin Hayman, an associate fellow with the institute, put the price tag …

The fate of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August, could rest on a meeting that opened yesterday on the Indonesian island of Bali. The U.N.-sponsored meeting, which runs for two weeks, aims to smooth out differences among nations on how to achieve the twin and rather daunting goals of protecting the environment and eliminating poverty. The U.S. decided against sending any high-ranking officials to the talks, a move environmentalists say demonstrates a lack of commitment to sustainable development. In part because of U.S. obstructionism, environmentalists fear the Bali talks will not …

More than 200 former employees of an RCA television and semiconductor plant in northern Taiwan have died of cancer and at least 1,000 others are suffering from the disease, in what industry watchdogs are calling the worst cancer cluster in the history of high-tech. A group of former plant workers arrived in Silicon Valley yesterday to tell their story and plead for justice, which has to date been elusive. Workers believe that the plant polluted the groundwater with toxic chemicals, leading to stillborn babies and cancer cases, but a 1999 lawsuit filed in Taiwan by former workers was dismissed, and …

We're not sure whose job it is to go through all the thousands of pages of documents related to Vice President Dick Cheney's formerly secretive energy task force, but they sure are having a grand old time. This week, the needle in the haystack was a memo sent to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham by Jane Hughes Turnbull, an executive at a California renewable energy company. In the memo, Turnbull chalked up her resignation from the National Coal Council to President Bush's decision to reverse a campaign pledge to cut carbon dioxide emissions. She said his reversal stemmed from vigorous lobbying …

The Bush administration canceled yesterday a two-year ban on new mining claims in roughly 1.2 million acres in and around southern Oregon's Siskiyou National Forest. The ban was imposed by the Clinton administration in response to lobbying efforts by conservationists, who wanted the area declared a national monument. Instead, former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt imposed the moratorium to allow time for further study and public comment. But the Bush administration, a pal to mining interests and no friend to new national monuments, lifted the ban, which was set to expire in January 2003. In its place, the Bureau of Land …

The U.S. Forest Service yesterday came out against adding any new wilderness areas to southeastern Alaska's 17 million-acre Tongass National Forest. The recommendation was a response to a ruling by U.S. District Judge James Singleton, who sided with environmentalists last year in ordering the Forest Service to determine if there were parts of the temperate rain forest that Congress could set aside as wilderness areas (where logging, mining, and road-building would be prohibited). The Forest Service's conclusion came as a blow to environmentalists, who saw it as further proof of the Bush administration's lack of commitment to wilderness preservation. The …