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Morocco On!

As day broke on Saturday, delegates in Marrakech, Morocco, reached an 11th-hour agreement on the rules for implementing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The agreement, which was the culmination of a two-week conference and four previous years of tough negotiations, mandates an average global reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 5.2 percent from 1990 […]

Lake It or Not

Overuse and pollution of the world’s lakes threaten nearly 1 billion people who depend on lake water for fishing, irrigation, transportation, tourism, sewage, and drinking water, global experts said during an international conference on lake management being held this week in Japan. More than half of the world’s lakes and reservoirs are already suffering from […]

Standards vs. the Poor?

The European Union is demanding that environmental issues be included in the latest round of World Trade Organization talks, which opened on Friday in Doha, Qatar. The E.U. wants environmental standards to be negotiated as a part of trade rules — and says the issue could be a “deal breaker” at the talks — but […]

Ben Lilliston and Mark Ritchie, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

Ben Lilliston is communications coordinator for and Mark Ritchie is president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a group based in Minneapolis, Minn., that works to keep family farmers on the land. Monday, 12 Nov 2001 DOHA, Qatar Ben Lilliston This morning, day three of the World Trade Organization meeting in Qatar, felt […]

Wouldn't Be Prud-ho-ent

In a development that casts doubt on repeated claims by the Bush administration that oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would not harm the environment, a new report by the petroleum giant BP details loads of safety and maintenance problems at its oil drilling operation in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. Among other […]

Doing the Fox Trot

Two Mexican environmentalists imprisoned on what they and their supporters say were false charges were pardoned yesterday by President Vicente Fox. Rodolfo Montiel and Teodoro Cabrera, who have led opposition to commercial logging in southwestern Mexico by Boise Cascade and other companies, had been sentenced to almost seven years and 10 years in jail, respectively, […]

Marrakech Express

It will be a long night for delegates hammering out details of the Kyoto treaty on climate change in Marrakech, Morocco; talks are scheduled to end today but are likely to drag on to midnight or beyond. Although a compromise has been reached by the majority of participating countries, including the European Union and the […]

Ashcroft, Ashcroft, We All Fall Down

A sweeping “wartime reorganization and mobilization” effort announced by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft yesterday sounds like bad news for environmental and social justice issues. Ashcroft indicated that the Justice Department will scale back or abandon many of its current responsibilities, which range from civil rights enforcement to prosecuting environmental polluters, in order to step […]

The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Opportunism Itself

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) blasted the Bush administration last night for using fear of terrorism to drum up support for oil drilling in Alaska and other extraction-based energy policies. Speaking at a dinner in New York for the League of Conservation Voters, the potential 2004 presidential candidate denounced the administration’s maneuverings as “misplaced patriotism” and […]

Unappealing

A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that a $5 billion punitive damage award levied against ExxonMobil for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill is excessive. The decision stunned environmentalists and the roughly 10,000 fishers, Alaska Natives, and others who have been awaiting compensation for more than a decade. When a jury handed down the verdict […]