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Hello, Minke, Pleased to Meat You
Japanese whaling vessels set sail yesterday on a six-month expedition to hunt up to 400 minke whales in the Antarctic. A 1986 ban on commercial whale hunting by the International Whaling Commission does not apply, because Japan claims the goal of the expedition is to gather data on the feeding habits, migration patterns, and lifecycle […]
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Climate Every Mountain
Mount Kilimanjaro could lose all of its glaciers by 2015, Greenpeace warned delegates at the climate change negotiations in Morocco yesterday. In a video-link press conference, Greenpeace reps on the slopes of Africa’s highest mountain offered the delegates a stark reminder of the kinds of changes to expect if climate change is not controlled. At […]
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Mormon Tabernacle Acquire
The Mormon Church is angling to buy U.S. Bureau of Land Management property it considers sacred, a move some say could set a troubling precedent. The Church has sought special legislation that would enable it to buy Martin’s Cove, BLM-owned land in central Wyoming where Utah-bound Mormons perished in an 1856 blizzard. The purchase would […]
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Gale Blows Off Florida
In a decision environmentalists say is symbolic of the Bush administration’s lack of commitment to conservation issues, Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced the closure of the federal Office of Everglades Restoration yesterday. The office was created in the last month of the Clinton administration to implement the nation’s most ambitious ecosystem restoration project ever — […]
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Population Not Da Bomb
The environmental outlook for our planet is bleak if we cannot control mushrooming birthrates, according to the United Nation’s annual “State of the World Population” report, released today. The study predicts that world population could grow from 6.1 billion to as many as 10.9 billion people by mid-century, unless dramatic gains are made in women’s […]
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Take a Spill Pill
Four environmental and angler groups sued the Bonneville Power Administration yesterday for unlawfully harming migrating salmon by increasing power production and reducing water flow at Columbia River dams this spring and summer. The BPA, the largest energy provider in the Northwest, is required by a federal salmon recovery plan to spill billions of gallons of […]
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Spending Some Green
Fifty percent of Americans consider themselves environmentalists, according to a recent Gallup poll, but how many put their money where their mouths are? In a survey by Roper, only 29 percent of respondents reported recently purchasing a product because it was advertised as environmentally friendly. Despite efforts to standardize labeling practices, market analysts say consumers […]
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Earning Some Green
Business for Social Responsibility, the brainchild of such lefty companies as Patagonia and Ben & Jerry’s, is holding a conference in Seattle this week that is attracting companies not exactly known for their progressive politics: Chevron, Weyerhaeuser, Ford, The Gap, Nike, and the like. Homegrown giants Starbucks and Microsoft will also attend the conference, where […]
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Erin Brockovich Gets Slick
When the Exxon Valdez ran areef in 1989 and spilled 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, 15,000 workers from around the world rallied to help with the cleanup. Now it’s the workers themselves who need help: More than a decade after the spill, hundreds of them say they are suffering from problems […]
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A Sucker Evolves Every Minute
For the first time, scientists have identified an animal — the pitcher-plant mosquito — that is evolving in response to global warming. Two University of Oregon scientists found that some of the mosquitoes are taking advantage of the longer summers brought about by global warming by delaying their hibernation — a process that is controlled […]
