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Year of the Snake Oil Salesman
President Bush said yesterday that he was “deeply concerned” that the energy crisis in California was “spreading beyond the California borders.” The thing to do about it, he said, was to make it far easier for companies to drill for oil and gas and to build new power plants. “And a good place to look […]
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Argy Bargy
A pile of trash that has been floating at sea for 15 years may have finally found a home in Florida. The pile — which began as 14,000 tons of municipal waste from Philadelphia in 1986 — has been rejected by Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and Singapore, as well as the states of Georgia, Ohio, and […]
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Montana: Max Has Money, Enviros Are a Pain
Montana Republicans are gearing up to make the state’s enviro laws much more friendly to industry groups, arguing that the laws have hurt the state’s economy and cost jobs in the mining, logging, and energy industries. The effort is likely to succeed because Republicans have the majority in both legislative chambers and the state’s new […]
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Giant Sucking Sounds II
The first widespread application of hydrogen fuel-cell technology might not be in cars but in vacuum cleaners. Industry giant Electrolux said last week that it is close to developing a fuel-cell vacuum that would be lighter than conventional models, much quieter, and, of course, free of a power cord. Big advances in pollution reduction are […]
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Tank Goodness
Thankfully, the oil spill in the Galapagos has caused only minimal damage to wildlife, enviros say. The oil tanker Jessica ran aground about 550 yards off the Ecuadorean archipelago and spilled about 185,000 gallons of fuel, but ocean currents have helped the clean-up effort and carried most of the fuel away from the islands, which […]
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Big Yak Attack
A ragtag group of about two dozen men fighting to stop poaching of the Tibetan antelope in China was forced to disband this month. Leaders of the China’s Wild Yak Brigade were told to take county jobs, and other members were offered jobs with the government’s less-experienced anti-poaching program. The antelope, whose fine wool is […]
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Trent Warfare
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has promised Alaska Sen. Frank Murkowski (R) that his energy bill, which is backed by oil interests, will be one of the first five bills introduced in the Senate this year. A draft of the bill proposes more drilling for oil and gas on federal lands, including the […]
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Rage Against the Machine
Betty Krawczyk, a 73-year-old great-grandmother, romance writer, and hero to many Canadian environmentalists, was released from jail yesterday, after a judge ruled that she had served enough of her year-long sentence for protesting old-growth logging in the Elaho Valley in British Columbia. Krawczyk began serving her jail term four months ago just as five loggers […]
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Stiff As a Board
Withstanding pressure from automakers, air quality officials in California voted 9-0 yesterday to move forward with a mandate requiring that 3 million electric and low-polluting vehicles be sold in the state over the next decade. The vote by the California Air Resources Board automatically triggers similar mandates in Vermont, Massachusetts, and New York, and affects […]
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Put on My Green Swede Shoes
Sweden’s Environmental Minister Kjell Larsson yesterday said that his country — which currently holds the European Union presidency — would push hard during its term to make the E.U.’s regulations on toxic chemicals much tougher. Sweden itself is already taking steps to ban chemicals that accumulate in the body, and Larsson thinks the entire E.U. […]
