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Chemical Bothers
Led by a prominent pediatrician, the Center for Children’s Health and the Environment at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine is waging war against industrial chemicals, saying they present significant health risks to children. At a press conference yesterday, Phillip Landrigan, the center’s director, said that the country doesn’t even have minimal toxicity data on […]
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Logging Out
A key Malaysian minister said this week that he hoped the government would move to ban imports of illegally logged Indonesian trees into his country within two weeks. Indonesia has banned the export of uncut logs from its rainforests, but its government has acknowledged that illegal logging continues and has asked other nations to step […]
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IBM: I Buy Megawatts
The World Resources Institute has corralled several prominent companies (think General Motors, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, and Kinkos) into expanding their use of renewable energy. The group hopes that a coalition of companies will commit to using 1,000 megawatts of renewable electricity by 2010; so far, companies in a dozen states have signed on to […]
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Mapmaker, Mapmaker Make Me a Map
The Environmental Working Group has created a website detailing the routes that could be used to transport radioactive waste to a proposed storage area below Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. The launching of the website, www.mapscience.org, comes as the Senate is preparing to vote on the controversial Yucca Mountain proposal, which is opposed by the state of […]
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Vati-can Do
Pope John Paul II and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leaders of Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity, signed a declaration yesterday stating that protecting the environment was the “moral and spiritual” duty of all believers. The document does not include any binding action plan, but is the first signed by the two religious leaders concerning […]
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A Mixed Bag
In a study of the cumulative health risks of pesticides, the U.S. has found that only two of the 30 pesticides it studied pose an unacceptable threat to human health when combined. The study was conducted in response to a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council, and its findings were announced yesterday evening, just […]
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Christopher Swain, Columbia River swimmer
Christopher Swain, the founder of Advocacy Swimming International, is swimming the Columbia River from source to mouth. When he is not swimming, he lives in Portland, Ore., with his wife and daughter. Monday, 10 Jun 2002 RADIUM HOT SPRINGS, British Columbia Last Tuesday, I zipped up my dry suit, kissed my wife and daughter, and […]
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Short Changed
Bolstering environmentalists’ accusations of favoritism in Florida, the Bush administration rejected on Friday a request by California Gov. Gray Davis (D) that it buy back offshore drilling rights. On May 29, President Bush announced a $235 million dollar buy-back of Florida drilling rights, a move that was widely viewed as a favor (and campaign contribution) […]
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A Shot in the Dark
For the obsessive ornithologists among our readers, some tragicomic news: Once-buoyant hopes for the survival of the ivory-billed woodpecker have faded after sounds thought to be the bird’s distinctive double-rap on a dead tree proved to be distant gunshots. Earlier this year, the ivory-billed woodpecker, which has not been confirmed to exist since shortly after […]
