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Hodging His Bets

The U.S. government could begin moving radioactive plutonium from Colorado into South Carolina’s Savannah River nuclear complex as soon as this weekend, following a federal judge’s refusal yesterday afternoon to block the shipments. Gov. Jim Hodges (D) has vowed to appeal the ruling, and maintains that he won’t allow the plutonium into South Carolina until […]

Amazon Grace

Here’s a little bit of welcome news from the Southern Hemisphere: The rate of deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest has fallen sharply, according to Brazilian environmental officials. Between 2000 and 2001, the rate of logging and set forest fires fell by 13 percent, from roughly 7,000 square miles of forest destroyed in 2000 to about […]

Justice First!

Two Earth First! activists were awarded $4.4 million yesterday after a jury found that three FBI agents and three Oakland police officers violated the civil rights of the duo. Darryl Cherney, who remains an Earth First! leader, and Judi Bari, who died of cancer in 1997, were injured in a 1990 car bombing on their […]

Can-do-ada

After a decade of debate, the Canadian House of Commons approved yesterday what could become Canada’s first nationwide endangered species bill. The bill would prohibit the harming or killing of endangered species on federal land and the destruction of the species’ critical habitat. A scientific advisory board would nominate critters to be added to an […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]