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Whatever Floats Your Nuke

Russia Offers Floating Nuclear Plants to India How’s this for a bad idea: floating nuclear plants. Russia, which has plans to build 11 such plants in its far north in the next few years, is also hoping to export the technology. Last month, Russia pitched the idea to India, reportedly offering to moor Russian-operated nuke […]

Less Bark, More Bite

Logging in the Amazon Leads to Increase in Malaria Destruction of the Amazon rainforest is encouraging the spread of malaria, according to new research based on data from Peru. Every 1 percent boost in deforestation increases the number of malaria-bearing mosquitoes by 8 percent, seemingly because these mosquitoes thrive in ponds that are exposed to […]

The Great Green North

Massive Agreement Aims to Save Canada’s Boreal Forests A huge forest-protection initiative will get off the ground in Canada today, aiming to put half of the nation’s northern boreal forests — some 650 million acres — off-limits to logging and development, and to ensure that activity in the other half is carefully controlled and eco-friendly. […]

The Fur Is Flying — Off the Shelves

Fur Fashions Drive Slaughter of Endangered Species Fur is making a comeback on fashion runways — and that means trouble for a number of endangered animals, according to an official with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. In the 1980s and ’90s, fur was largely out of vogue and thus the animal skin […]

Tara Wesely, Rivers for Life meeting

Tara Wesely is attending the Rivers for Life meeting in Thailand. She is assistant manager of environmental sustainability at Aveda Corp. and a fellow with the Environmental Leadership Program. Monday, 1 Dec 2003 RASI SALAI, Thailand Bamboo amazes me. You can eat it, cook with it, build with it, even decorate with it. I slept […]

Eat Lots, Buy Little, and Try Not to Miss Us Too Much

Grist Takes Publishing Hiatus Until Dec. 1 In honor of Thanksgiving and Buy Nothing Day, Grist will be taking a three-day publishing break beginning tomorrow. But fret not — we’ll be back, wiser and wittier than ever, on Monday, Dec. 1. Happy holidays!

Bloody Appalling

Britons’ Bodies Contaminated with a Stew of Chemicals A cocktail of toxic chemicals was found in the bodies of every person tested as part of a British study commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund. In one of the most comprehensive such surveys to date, 155 people from around the U.K. had their blood analyzed for […]

Finding Memo

Industry Poised to Clash with California Over Chemical Testing California, ever on the cutting edge of environmental policy, is considering following the lead of the European Union by requiring more safety testing of chemicals — a move the chemical industry doesn’t plan to take lying down. According to a memo from the American Chemical Council […]

Forest Gumption

Scientists Call for Protection of Half of B.C. Rainforest Almost half of British Columbia’s coastal rainforest must be protected in order to maintain the health of its ecosystem, according to a team of independent scientists studying the 42,471-square-mile swath of forest on Canada’s western coast. The surprise advice to preserve between 44 and 50 percent […]

Crash Test Dummies

Energy Dept. Reviews Hazards Posed by Military Aircraft at Yucca Mtn. Increased military flights over Nellis Air Force Range and the Nevada Test Site will require revising hazard calculations about the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the U.S. Department of Energy announced yesterday. Earlier this week, a military jet crashed on the Nellis range, […]