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Quality Is Job One

Protected Areas Aren’t Adequate to Shield Endangered Species Some 20 percent of the world’s threatened animal species live in habitats that are entirely unprotected, according to a study just published in the journal Nature. Although 11.5 percent of the world’s land is protected in wildlife preserves and parks — exceeding the ambitious 10 percent goal […]

Breath Defying

EPA’s New Smog Standards Cause Political Uproar On April 15, the U.S. EPA will release a list of counties across the country that exceed its new standards for ground-level ozone (the main component of smog), and the impending announcement is already kicking up a political poopstorm. Local and state governments in overly smoggy areas will […]

Crossing Jeffords

Jeffords Stalls Bush EPA Appointments Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) has put on hold four of President Bush’s appointments to top positions in the U.S. EPA, protesting what he says is the agency’s refusal to turn over documents he’s requested. Saying he has repeatedly been “stonewalled” by the agency — he points to 12 unmet document […]

Hole in the Wal-Mart

Los Angeles Suburb Spurns Mega-Retailer Voters in the Los Angeles community of Inglewood voted overwhelmingly yesterday to deny giant retailer Wal-Mart the right to build a mammoth “supercenter” on a parcel of land the size of 17 football fields without an environmental impact study or public hearings. Citizens voted by a margin of 61 to […]

Friends in Hybrid Places

American Automakers Get Ready to Sell Hybrids Ford Motor Co. announced today that it will put a second hybrid SUV on the market in 2007, but the company and its American counterparts still have a ways to go before they catch up with Japanese automakers and satisfy the demands of environmentalists. Ford’s first hybrid SUV, […]

Melts in Your Oceans, Not in Your Hand

Greenland Ice Sheet to Melt, Drowning Coastlines If current global warming trends continue, Greenland’s ice sheet — the world’s second largest, after Antarctica’s — will begin melting by the end of the century, and over the course of 1,000 years will melt entirely, raising worldwide ocean levels by some 23 feet and totally screwing up […]

Don’t Be So Defensive

Pentagon Seeks Yet More Environmental Exemptions The U.S. Department of Defense went to Congress again yesterday and requested more exemptions from environmental laws. Congress has granted five of the eight exemptions previously sought by the DOD, which claims — despite findings to the contrary by congressional investigators in 2002 — that environmental restrictions are hampering […]

Molybdenum? I Barely Know ’em!

Feds Sell Colorado Land to Mining Firm at Rock-Bottom Price Citing a provision in the federal Mining Act of 1872, the Bush administration has sold 155 acres of federal land near the resort community of Crested Butte, Colo., to a multinational mining company for $875. “For less than $1,000, Phelps Dodge has acquired 150 acres […]

A progressive ranching advocate answers questions

What environmental organization are you affiliated with? The Quivira Coalition, a nonprofit conservation organization based in Santa Fe, N.M. What’s your job title? Executive director and cofounder. What does your organization do? What, in a perfect world, would constitute “mission accomplished”? We work to build bridges between ranchers, environmentalists, public-land managers, scientists, and others in […]

Talking Trash

New Biomass Process Holds Great Promise Biomass — the process of converting carbon-based waste into fuel — is slowly but surely becoming a viable enterprise. At the forefront are companies like Changing World Technologies Inc.; its first commercial plant, recently built in Carthage, Mo., sees thousands of tons of turkey parts from a nearby Butterball […]