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The Lead Badge of Courage

Vermont Senator Proposes Stricter Drinking-Water Legislation Sen. James Jeffords (I-Vt.) announced this week that he will introduce legislation that aims to eliminate lead from the nation’s drinking water. The Lead-Free Drinking Water Act, the first major proposed revision of the Safe Drinking Water Act in 14 years, would ban plumbing fixtures with more than 0.02 […]

Terminator 4: Demise of the Machines

Schwarzenegger to Kill Machines, Again — This Time, the Polluting Kind California officials seeking to ameliorate the state’s persistent smog problems are focusing on a common group of culprits: old machines. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) is meeting with business groups, enviros, and legislators to develop a plan to rid the state’s roads of old cars, […]

Blame Canada

British Columbia Mine Plan Has Montanans in an Uproar Coal-mining and natural-gas drilling projects could soon get underway in British Columbia’s Flathead Valley, just north of the U.S. border and Glacier National Park, but a group of Montana enviros and politicians is bringing international pressure to bear in an attempt to stop them. The valley […]

Hear No Evil

Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Two Environmental Cases Such is the power of the U.S. Supreme Court that its refusal to hear a case can carry as much weight as a ruling, and two such refusals this week have enviros buzzing. One case involved the U.S. EPA’s authority to force the Tennessee Valley Authority — […]

A Pressing Matter

Journalist Covering Eco-Radicalism Gets Snared in Story A journalist covering attempts by Earth First! activists to thwart a cougar hunt on federal land has been arrested along with one of the activists and charged with trespassing and disabling mountain-lion traps. The case raises troubling and knotty questions about the First Amendment and the ability of […]

A long-time conservationist and budding politician answers questions

What work do you do? As the executive director of the Turner Endangered Species Fund, I work to ensure the persistence of imperiled species and their habitats, with an emphasis on private land. More generally, I work to advance the science of restoration ecology and ensure that an increasing number of people live more simply, […]

Absolutely Cabulous

New Hybrid Taxis Taking Off Once the sole province of eco-conscious consumers willing to pay a little extra to reduce their environmental footprint, gas-electric hybrid vehicles have found an eager new consumer demographic: taxi services. In urban areas from Vancouver to Boston to New York City, taxi operators are getting hep to the benefits of […]

Drain Oh!

Harsh Western Drought May Be the Norm, Say Scientists The harsh drought that has been plaguing the American West in recent years is set to produce a raft of environmental, political, and social crises, but we’d better get used to it, say some scientists. Research into the drought cycles of the past 800 years increasingly […]

From Russia With Wood

Russia’s Siberian Forests in Danger The Krasnoyarsk region in Siberia is Russia’s most significant timber-producing area, which is saying something in a massive country 70 percent covered by forest. But the region’s forests are threatened from all sides, say activists. Illegal logging is rampant; in fact, up to 30 percent of all logging in Russia […]

You Do Have to Live Like a Refugee

Pacific-Island Dwellers Suffer from Global Warming Now is not a good time to live on a small Pacific island. Thanks to global warming, many researchers say, species on such islands face a variety of perils. The living coral that surrounds the islands reacts to warmer ocean temperatures by bleaching, or as the vernacular has it, […]