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Greens' Day
Germany’s Greens emerged unusually unified this week from their party congress in Stuttgart, just a few weeks before two key state elections. The Greens, a partner in Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s coalition government, made steps to end longstanding divisions between radicals and moderates. Moderates were appeased when the party voted not to support blockades of nuclear […]
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Cannon Bawl
The Interior Department under Gale Norton is quietly getting behind congressional efforts to roll back former President Clinton’s legacy of national monuments. Today, for instance, the National Park Service is set to come out in support of legislation to restore hunting at the Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho. The bill is expected […]
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Right On!
Northern right whale births are at the highest level on record, according to researchers flying over calving grounds off the coasts of Florida and Georgia. The researchers have spotted 24 surviving newborns this calving season, a big jump over last year, when they only saw one. They think the rise might relate to the increased […]
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Franco, My Dear, I Don't Want a Dam
More than 100,000 protesters gathered in the streets of Madrid on Sunday in the latest of a series of protests against a massive $23 billion water diversion project in Spain. The plan, which is now before the country’s parliament, would divert the Ebro River in the northeast and involve the construction of 120 dams to […]
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Driving in Circles
Your letters about our three-part automobile series showed that Grist readers are all over the map on this issue. Here’s a taste of the letters we received about Detroit Sucks, Bush Sucks, and Enviros Suck. Dear Editor: The consumer sucks for not demanding more fuel-efficient vehicles. Tom DeBates Geneva, Ill. Dear Editor: In […]
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Getting Into Chip Shape
Semiconductor manufacturers have reached a voluntary agreement with the U.S. EPA to reduce the use of chemicals that contribute to global warming. The industry cleans equipment and makes silicon wafers using perfluorocompounds, which are 10,000 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at trapping heat and last in the atmosphere for 2,000 to 50,000 years. Under […]
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Spilling Me Softly
Salmon are suffering as the West feels the squeeze of California’s energy crisis and the second-worst drought since 1929. Operators of federal dams are being forced to choose between using water to generate hydropower or spilling it downstream to support salmon. The Bonneville Power Administration announced last week that salmon recovery programs on the Columbia […]
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Songbird Sings the Blues
Some animals facing extinction aren’t being helped by the Endangered Species Act thanks to a decision last year by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to place a moratorium on protecting new species. The service said it had to impose the freeze because it was too busy and short on cash from dealing with lawsuits […]
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For the Love of the Lamb
What’s a conservationist to do when the biggest threat to the survival of a species is another rare species? In California’s eastern Sierra Nevada, endangered bighorn sheep could be pushed to extinction by the threatened mountain lions that like to eat them. Not all mountain lions have a taste for mutton — champions of the […]
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Is This Bush Green?
Loud cries to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge aside, the Bush administration has taken some steps to make industry edgy, and some right-wingers are growing nervous that Dubya’s environmental policies will differ very little from former President Clinton’s. Said one anonymous industry lobbyist, commenting on the Bush administration, “If their goal is to […]
