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Gopher It!

In what could turn into an unprecedented deal to protect imperiled animals and plants in the U.S., the Interior Department and several environmental groups are working on an agreement to safeguard more than two dozen species under the Endangered Species Act. The agreement would cover such species as the coastal cutthroat trout in Oregon and […]

Slammin' Salmon

Tens of thousands of Atlantic salmon have escaped from British Columbia fish farms into 77 of the province’s waterways, according to a new report by the Canadian Parliament’s Senate Committee on Fisheries. The aquaculture industry had dismissed concerns that farm-raised Atlantic salmon would ever escape and be able to survive in the wild, posing a […]

No Way, Says Jose

Wielding scythes and shears, hundreds of protesters hacked down two test fields of genetically engineered corn in southeast France on Sunday. The incident was the fifth such protest against biotech foods in France since late June. Jose Bove, a French farmer who is one of the world’s leading anti-globalization activists, has called for a campaign […]

Yankee Doodle Dandies

Tired of waiting for the U.S. federal government to act, New England governors, including three Republicans, joined yesterday with Eastern Canadian premiers to vow to cut the region’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2010, and 10 percent below that by 2020. No regional or international agency exists to enforce the deal, but the […]

Missile Offense

Enviros and arms-control groups are suing the Pentagon today over its plans for a new missile defense test range in the Pacific. The Natural Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and a number of Alaska-based plaintiffs charge that the Defense Department must conduct an analysis of the environmental impact of missile testing on […]

North Duck-ota

Farmers in several North Dakota counties have stopped plowing under one-fourth of their cropland in exchange for dependable annual payments under the conservation reserve program. Farmer Patty Hofmann said, “Cropping wheat is just very risky and expensive, and we would have lost our farm if we hadn’t signed up for the conservation program.” How well […]

Paris-stroika

In his quest to make Paris greener, the city’s new Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoe, wants to add more than 25 miles of bus lanes and discourage more cars from coming into the city. “Today, private motorists, who make up a quarter of road users, use up 94 percent of Paris’s road surfaces. I have a […]

Label-minded

The Bush administration is pressuring the European Union to drop new restrictions on genetically engineered foods. Last month, the European Commission gave preliminary approval to require labeling on most biotech foods. Administration officials say the rules would discriminate against U.S. products and violate World Trade Organization requirements. They say that the rules could cost U.S. […]

In the Drink

The gasoline additive MTBE, a known carcinogen, has already leaked into 48 public wells that provide water to hundreds of thousands of Californians, according to a San Francisco Chronicle analysis of state data. The additive is leaking from 1,189 underground storage tanks within 1,000 feet of public wells or drinking water aquifers, threatening the water […]

Kathleen Whitley, Sustainable Energy Alliance of Long Island

Kathleen Whitley, a Long Island native, is program manager of the Sustainable Energy Alliance of Long Island. Sunday, 26 Aug 2001 LONG ISLAND, N.Y. It’s an interesting story how I came to be writing these diaries for Grist Magazine. Two months ago, I happened to be in Loudoun County, Va., with my oldest daughter’s softball […]