Uncategorized

Breathe, Breathe in the Air, Don't Be Afraid to Care

The European Commission yesterday launched a three-year investigation into how Europe can better combat air pollution. Many of the European Union’s existing air-quality rules are due to be revised in 2004, and the Clean Air for Europe investigation will provide the framework for new clean-air standards and national emissions caps. The probe will focus especially […]

I'm Gonna Git You Sucker

More than 15,000 farmers and their supporters gathered yesterday in Klamath Falls, Ore., near the California border, to protest the loss of irrigation water to fish protected by the Endangered Species Act. The protesters formed a one-and-half-mile-long bucket brigade down the city’s main street, passing 50 pails of water from the Upper Klamath Lake into […]

Forward, Marsh

Wisconsin yesterday became the first state to put into law a stronger set of protections for wetlands just four months after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling removed federal safeguards from isolated wetlands that provide habitat for migrating birds. The court decision in January had left vulnerable 4.2 million acres of isolated wetlands in the state […]

Full Metalclad Racket

A judge in British Columbia ruled last week that a NAFTA tribunal was right to award millions of dollars to a U.S. company that was prevented from opening a hazardous waste treatment plant in Mexico. Justice David Tysoe of the Supreme Court of B.C. found that the move by the state government of San Luis […]

Smithsonian and Lesson

After U.S. politicians on both sides of the aisle and scientists across the world raised the roof about a plan to close a wildlife conservation center in Virginia, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, Lawrence Small, said yesterday that he was withdrawing the proposal. Small had proposed to save the Smithsonian $2.8 million a year […]

Saving Grace

A government-led program to encourage energy efficiency could reduce growth in electricity demand by 20 to 47 percent in the U.S., according to three-year report by the Energy Department’s five laboratories. The amount of energy savings would depend on the price of new energy technologies and how aggressively the feds promoted efficiency in buildings, factories, […]

Riding Alone in My Automobile

The average American is spending about 36 hours a year in traffic, up from 11 hours in 1982, according to a study released today by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University. Based on 1999 data, the most recent year for which such figures were available, the report found that the average Los Angeles […]

Royal, Copenhagen

Officials in Copenhagen, Denmark, helped to inaugurate the world’s largest offshore windmill park this month. The park has a capacity of 40 megawatts of electricity — four times more than the second-largest offshore windmill park in Sweden — and will supply about 3 percent of the city’s energy, powering the equivalent of 32,000 homes. In […]

My Mother's Left Foot

Michelle Long, Transparency Center

Michelle Long recently cofounded the Transparency Center, a nonprofit organization focused on facilitating transparent, stakeholder-inclusive models of trade. Sunday, 6 May 2001 SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. Hello. Welcome to my world and my work. Opening my day to all of you presents an interesting opportunity — and also a challenge. In the challenge of reducing what […]