Uncategorized

Soothe the Salvage Beast

Ecologists Warn Against Salvage Logging Salvage logging — harvesting burnt trees from the site of a fire — is not, contrary to public perception and federal practice, an environmentally benign method of gathering timber, write a group of forest ecologists in an article in the journal Science. Dead wood, they say, plays an important ecological […]

Every Which Way but Laos

Laos’ Natural Resources Are Rapidly Disappearing A perfect storm of widespread poverty, corrupt and inefficient communist leadership, and international indifference has made the Southeast Asian nation of Laos a virtual case study in environmental decline. Although it is one of the world’s poorest and least developed nations, Laos is rich with natural resources, which represent […]

Getting the Vapors

Concerns About Hanford Worker Safety Grow Concerns over the safety of workers cleaning up the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southwestern Washington state — site of the largest nuclear waste dump in the Western Hemisphere — continue to escalate. Yesterday, the Department of Energy announced a formal investigation of the private contractor that monitors worker health, […]

Pipe Down

D.C. Issues Warning Over Lead in Residential Pipes Washington, D.C., health officials will announce today that pregnant women and children under the age of 6 who live in homes in the city with lead service lines should immediately stop drinking unfiltered tap water and have their blood tested for lead. D.C. Water and Sewer Authority […]

Bad Crops, Bad Crops, Whatcha Gonna Do?

International Battle Over GM Food Continues In other genetic modification news, skirmishes over the safety and labeling of GM foods are erupting this week in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as delegates from around the world convene to discuss the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. The U.N. accord, which went into force last September, governs cross-border trade in […]

Readers sound off on diapers, Dennis Kucinich, and more

  Cut from Different Cloth Re: Kid Commando Dear Editor: I usually love your magazine, but I was disappointed by your column on diapering options. I think it’s great that you educated people about “elimination communication,” but this is a challenging technique, as you described, so not many parents are likely to be willing or […]

A solar entrepreneur answers questions

What environmental organization are you affiliated with? What does it do? Greenstar. We invest in solar-powered community centers for small villages in the developing world — currently in the West Bank, Jamaica, India, Ghana, Brazil, and Tibet. The community center provides basic electricity and a connection to the world through the Internet, which enables the […]

To Your Health!

Science Panel Okays Pesticide Testing on Humans A National Academy of Sciences panel said yesterday that testing of pesticides and other toxic chemicals on human subjects — including, in appropriate circumstances, children — is ethical as long as such tests meet stringent safety and scientific standards. The decision came as a surprise to environmental groups, […]

Corn to Be Wild

U.K. to Approve Planting of GM Corn The British government is set to give the go-ahead for genetically modified corn to be grown in the nation, according to documents leaked yesterday from a meeting of top government officials. A formal announcement is expected next week, though the government maintains that no final decision has been […]

Yucca Will Leaka

Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump Beset With Problems The perpetually beleaguered nuclear waste dump being constructed at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain is coming under fire again, from several directions. Yesterday, Paul Craig, who recently resigned from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board to make his concerns public, stated flatly that the Department of Energy’s current design […]