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Film Flam

Upcoming Climate-Change Disaster Movie Provokes Silliness “The Day After Tomorrow,” a big-budget climate-change disaster flick directed by Roland Emmerich (creator of such visionary fare as “Independence Day” and the 1998 “Godzilla” remake), is due for release on May 28, and it’s got folks on both sides of the global-warming debate all atwitter. Fearing that the […]

Capital Steps

Venture Capital Investment in Clean Technology Grows Clean tech is hot. Research and development of eco-friendly technologies in water purification, agriculture, transportation, manufacturing, recycling, air quality, and renewable energy such as solar, wind, and hydrogen is drawing a larger and larger share of venture capital. In 2003, total venture capital spending fell by 14 percent […]

To Well in a Handbasket

Abandoned Oil Wells Vex Southern California Oil wells run dry, and when they do — as many have in Southern California — the looming question is, what do you do with them? The once-booming California oil business hit its peak in 1985, and since then much of the oil has gradually dried up and the […]

Geoss in the Heouse

Countries Agree to Form Earth Observation Framework Delegates from 44 nations and 26 international groups agreed this weekend to form a global environmental observation system by 2014, to be called — in what we can only assume is a tribute to Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” — the Global Earth Observation System of […]

The Fore Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Golf Courses Aren’t So Green Though the golf industry says it’s been striving to lighten its ecological impact, golf courses are increasingly flashpoints of environmental controversy. According to the Worldwatch Institute, the U.S. is home to some 18,000 golf courses — more than half the world’s 35,000 — covering 1.7 million acres and using 4 […]

A Hard Act to Follow

Report Finds Endangered Species Act Failing Over the first two decades the U.S. Endangered Species Act was in effect, from 1973 to 1994, 114 species went extinct or missing, “sacrificed to bureaucratic inertia, political meddling, and lack of leadership,” said Kieran Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity, which released a report on the ESA […]

All Wet

Bush Wetlands Initiative Less Ambitious Than It Appears Attempting to neutralize John Kerry’s criticisms of his environmental record, President Bush traveled on Earth Day to Maine, a crucial swing state, and announced a wetlands initiative that aims to restore or protect some 3 million acres of wetlands over the next five years. Enviros, though, knocked […]

Libia Grueso advocates for Afro-Colombians and their land

The Pacific Coast of Colombia, a narrow slice of jungle between the Andes and the ocean, is rich with plant and animal life. It’s also home to about a third of Colombia’s 10.6 million Afro-Colombians, descendants of black slaves emancipated in the mid-1800s. In recent years, this isolated area has been hit hard by logging, […]

Happy Earth Day! Anybody Got a Life Vest?

U.K. Report Warns of Rising Flood Dangers and Costs The U.K. government marked Earth Day with characteristic British cheer, releasing a report warning that much of the country is going to experience flooding in coming decades. According to an expert government panel, the cost of physical and psychological damage from floods in the U.K. is […]

Earth to Public: Come In, Public …

Earth Day Prompts Flurry of Electoral Rhetoric; Public Yawns Earth Day during a big election year inevitably prompts a flurry of earnest talk about the environment and which candidate is better for it, and today is no exception. President Bush touted his love of wetlands in Maine; John Kerry blasted Bush’s environmental record in Houston, […]