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They've Got Balls

Vice President Dick Cheney was greeted by two standing ovations from the crowd yesterday at the annual conference sponsored by the Nuclear Energy Institute. Cheney is the architect of the Bush administration energy plan, which calls for increased use of nuclear power in the U.S. In celebration of the change of heart in Washington, D.C., […]

Pop the Corks

Delegates from 127 countries yesterday formally moved to adopt a treaty to ban or reduce the use of 12 persistent organic pollutants (POPs), chemicals such as PCBs and pesticides that have been linked to cancer, birth defects, and genetic abnormalities in humans and wildlife. The treaty will be signed by delegates in Stockholm, Sweden, today, […]

With a Knick-knack, Sarawack

Elsewhere in Malaysia, the $5 billion, 2,400-megawatt Bakun Dam project is slated to flood a rainforest area the size of Singapore. The government says the dam is needed to help spur economic development and bring new industry to the 2 million residents of Sarawak, the country’s largest state. But opponents say the dam will displace […]

I Shout, the Shariff

The mayor of Kuala Lumpur, Kamaruzzaman Shariff, announced plans earlier this week to clean up the city by adopting Singapore-style laws to punish litterbugs. He said that contractors in the Malaysian city now pull 44 tons of trash from the city’s rivers every day. Shariff recently visited Singapore and was impressed by the country’s litter-free […]

How Do We Sleep While Our Labs Are Burning?

Federal authorities believe that two fires in the Northwest may have been set early on Monday by environmentalists opposed to genetic engineering. The arson at the University of Washington in Seattle appeared targeted at research to make genetically engineered trees more commercially viable, but authorities said the fire mostly destroyed or damaged work on endangered […]

Linking Logs

Huge Asian timber companies now control 90 percent of the $10 billion tropical timber trade and are posing a new threat to the world’s tropical rainforests, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer in a three-part series. The rainforests cover only 6 percent of the planet, but contain two-thirds of the world’s species. In many countries, such as […]

A Good Yarn

Fairy penguins on the Australian island state of Tasmania are gearing up to survive the winter, as tiny wool jerseys arrive from around the world to help them cope with oil spills. The specially knit outfits stop oil-coated penguins from preening themselves and ingesting the poisonous oil. The Tasmanian Conservation Trust realized it was running […]

Heckle and Jackal

President Bush encountered widespread protests yesterday when he received an honorary degree and spoke at the commencement of his alma mater, Yale University. Graduating students heckled Bush, held up signs that read “Conservation, Not Consumption” and “Don’t Turn Your Back on the Environment,” and handed out “Got Arsenic?” stickers. Some students from the Yale School […]

Quiet Riot

Citing concerns about unruly anti-globalization protests, the World Bank yesterday canceled a three-day conference that was to take place next month in Barcelona, Spain. The conference would have gathered academics together to talk about ways to ensure that the poor benefit from lower trade barriers and other aspects of globalization. The city was planning to […]

There's a Vas Deferens Between Us

A small but growing number of environmentalists in the U.S. have decided to get vasectomies to ensure they don’t have children and contribute to the population problem. Jeff Miller, a 38-year-old activist in Berkeley, Calif., who got a vasectomy when he was 26, said, “It’s one small thing that I can do. There are too […]