Uncategorized
All Stories
-
Ear, There, and Everywhere
To their surprise, Mexican authorities have discovered that some of the country’s native corn varieties have been contaminated by genetically engineered DNA. The finding is particularly troubling because Mexico has not approved the commercial planting of genetically modified corn. Moreover, the contaminated seeds were found in an area considered to be the world’s repository of […]
-
No-fry Zone
An unidentified plane flew close to the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station on Sep. 13, but fighter jets sent to track the plane down never found it, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) said yesterday. Dean and other lawmakers across the country are calling on the Bush administration to create no-fly zones around all 103 nuclear […]
-
Visualize Whirled Peace
Before terrorists plowed into national landmarks and national headlines, anti-globalization activists in the U.S. had hoped to claim the limelight with a major protest this past weekend in Washington, D.C. Instead, that movement is now struggling to regroup in the face of a new political climate, one in which the public is no longer as […]
-
Swati Prakash, West Harlem Environmental Action
Swati Prakash is environmental health director for West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT), a nonprofit, grassroots organization working to improve environmental quality and to secure environmental justice in predominately African-American and Latino communities. Monday, 1 Oct 2001 NEW YORK, N.Y. Monday morning. My first thought as I go through my morning ritual is, “Will this […]
-
Tusk, Tusk
Decades of war, poaching, and habitat destruction have decimated Vietnam’s Asian elephant population, a trend the Vietnamese government is belatedly trying to reverse. Following a September agreement between Vietnam and Cambodia to cooperate on elephant conservation, a herd of elephants in Vietnam will be moved by truck from the southern coastal province of Binh Thuan […]
-
Wading to Exhale
In a heretofore undocumented ecological process, the Great Lakes are purifying themselves by “exhaling” decades-old toxic chemicals, according to a study released on Friday by the Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network. Lake Ontario alone released nearly two tons of now-banned PCBs between 1992 and 1996; together, the five lakes eliminated 10 tons of PCBs and close […]
-
Golly G.E.
Environmental groups and officials in New York state are concerned that General Electric may be making headway in its campaign to scuttle a federal plan forcing it to dredge the Hudson River for pollution. U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman announced in August that she would proceed with a $500 million, Clinton-era plan to order G.E. […]
-
Frank-enstein
U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) is threatening to delay all action in the Senate unless Democratic leaders agree to let an energy bill that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling reach the Senate floor. A Murkowski ally, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), has proposed to tack the entire GOP energy bill onto a […]
-
Organophos-fate
To the dismay of pesticide-makers, a federal judge on Wednesday approved a settlement between enviros and the U.S. EPA that will speed up a review of the safety of pesticides in the food supply. The agency now has until next August to assess the risks of 39 commonly used organophosphates, a class of highly toxic […]
-
Hello, Newmont!
Hundreds of demonstrators blocked a major highway in northern Peru this week, demanding that the largest gold mine in Latin America be shut down because it was contaminating local water supplies with mercury. Peru’s energy and mines minister, Jaime Quijandria, said it was “simply and totally impossible” for the water to have been contaminated by […]
