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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, […]

Kathryn Schulz reviews Monster of God by David Quammen

What this world needs," opined the nature writer David Quammen in a 1984 column for Outside magazine, "is a good vicious 60-foot-long Amazon snake." He was kidding, thankfully; the rest of the column goes on to describe the human tendency to massively exaggerate the size of anacondas in the Amazon. Now, though, 19 years later, Quammen has written Monster of God, a book arguing that precisely what the world does need is very large, very predatory animals.

David Waskow, Friends of the Earth

David Waskow is an international policy analyst at Friends of the Earth U.S., where he works on trade policy, corporate accountability, and the environment. Monday, 17 Nov 2003 MIAMI, Fla. It may as well be called the World Trade Summit Beach Tour: next stop, Miami. The last stop was in Cancun, Mexico, in September, where […]

Hospital Scrubs

Connecticut Hospital Adopts Green Cleaning Regime Surgery patients and birthing mothers in Greenwich, Conn., will no longer be assaulted by that “hospital smell” in most parts of Greenwich Hospital now that the facility has made a switch to using eco-friendly cleaning products. The hospital is thought to be among the first in the U.S. to […]

Haiti Crimes

Logging Leads to Devastating Floods and Erosion in Haiti Flooding and erosion have become such massive problems in the area around Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince that they can wipe out shanties, cars, even whole neighborhoods. A number of human-caused factors contribute to the devastation, including poor irrigation and drainage practices, unregulated construction on hillsides, and, […]

Gone Today, Ear Tomorrow

E.U. Poised to End Five-Year Ban on New GM Foods A corn product developed by the Anglo-Swiss biotech company Syngenta will likely be approved for sale by the European Union next month, ending a five-year de facto ban on new genetically modified foods on the continent. A number of other GM product approvals are expected […]

I Wear My Sunglasses to Fight

Anonymous National Park Service Employees Speak of Broad Discontent They showed up for a news conference at the National Press Building cloaked in dark glasses, hats, and scarves, used a voice disguiser, and hid behind a thick curtain. But they weren’t mafia informants or witnesses in a spy case; they were longtime employees of the […]