Uncategorized

Silvery Lining

If fish could celebrate, there would have been a major party going on among silvery minnows yesterday, when a federal appeals court ruled that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation must take the species into account when managing New Mexico’s water system. State officials, who have long been fighting environmentalists over the endangered silvery minnow, claim […]

Deep Blue See

Over the objections of lawmakers from coastal states, the U.S. Senate yesterday approved a plan to survey oil and natural gas deposits beneath the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Supporters say the country has the right to know the extent and nature of its energy reserves in case of a crisis. Critics say the plan could […]

And other words from readers

  Re: Mobil-ized Dear Editor: Sometimes being anal pays off. I’ve been using Quicken since 1996 to track all my expenses, and I see here that I’ve spent $6,178.56 on gasoline over the past seven years. Of that total, $1,339.41 went to Mobil, $747.09 went to Exxon, and the rest to BP, Shell, and assorted […]

Turning Over a New Reef

Here’s some cheery news to lighten all the grim findings about the bleaching of much of the Great Barrier Reef: Australian scientists have stumbled onto a new reef off the coast of Queensland. At 46 square miles, the reef can’t hold a candle to its 133,200 square-mile big brother, but it’s still bigger than, for […]

Tapped Out

Drinking bottled water isn’t necessarily a good thing for your health or for the environment, since the plastic bottles take up space in landfills and their contents are not subject to strict regulations. But how safe is the tap water you drink? Getting better, but still not as good as it should be, according to […]

Home Is Where the Smart Is

Canada’s efforts to meet the terms of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions could have a positive outcome for homeowners: Under a plan approved by a federal cabinet committee this week, Canadians who take steps to make their homes more energy efficient could get an average rebate of about $740. […]

Shady Deals in the Sunshine State?

The Florida chapter of the Sierra Club is calling for the resignation of David Struhs, secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, even as Struhs is reportedly being considered as a possible replacement for Christie Whitman, who last month stepped down as administrator of the U.S. EPA. The Sierra Club accuses Struhs of having […]

Smokey Vs. the Bear

National parks in the U.S., already beset by problems ranging from overcrowding to a huge maintenance backlog, now face a new crisis: illegal marijuana farming. “This is massive-scale agriculture that is threatening the very mission of the national parks, which is to preserve the natural environment in perpetuity and provide for safe public recreation,” says […]

The Great Wail of China

Millions of people in northern China can look ahead to water shortages this summer with the Yellow River at a 50-year low, and the nation as a whole is expected to face a shortfall of 53 trillion gallons of water by 2030 — more than the total amount the nation now uses in a year. […]

Hanging Chad

Developing countries whose economies rely on exports of oil, gas, or extracted minerals are likely to be poverty-stricken, corrupt, authoritarian, and beset by civil war, according to numerous scholarly studies conducted since the late 1980s. Environmentalists and human-rights advocates have often used these studies to argue that the World Bank should stop funding resource-extraction projects. […]