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Putting His Asbestos Foot Forward

GOP vice presidential nominee Dick Cheney and the energy company he runs, Halliburton Co., have contributed more than $150,000 to members of Congress who co-sponsored legislation that would curtail the ability of workers to sue companies over asbestos exposure. Coincidentally (ahem), about 273,300 lawsuits have been filed against Halliburton and its subsidiaries since 1976 by […]

Air Apparent

Spurred by Beijing’s bid for the 2008 Summer Olympics, China is pledging to ramp up its effort to clean the country’s air. Last year, Beijing’s air qualified for the government’s best rating, Level 1, only once — when the government shut down industries for the 50th anniversary of communist China — and a quarter of […]

Laissez-fair?

U.S. enviros said yesterday that a Clinton administration plan for making international trade negotiations more eco-friendly is a good first step but doesn’t go nearly far enough. Under rules proposed by the White House last month, U.S. trade negotiators would be required to review how draft trade agreements would affect the environment and to solicit […]

Johnny Bad-Seed

Even as the controversy around genetically modified (GM) crops escalates, few people are aware that a biotech revolution in forestry is also underway, with GM trees being developed and tested around the globe. Some have been engineered to grow cherries in unusual colors or apples that don’t turn brown even hours after being sliced. Others […]

Graham Slam

Environmentalists yesterday called on Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), a potential Democratic vice presidential candidate, to come out against a proposed commercial airport in south Florida, saying the expansion of the former Homestead air force base would bring development and pollution that would devastate the nearby Everglades and Biscayne national parks. The Sierra Club and Friends […]

Wishful Sinking

With international negotiations on the Kyoto climate change treaty set to continue this fall, the U.S. is proposing that countries get the same amount of credit for using forests and farmland to absorb carbon dioxide as they would for reducing CO2 emissions from power plants and cars. The State Department says the carbon-sink effect in […]

Pop Goes the Diesel

In the latest step in its crackdown on dirty diesel vehicles, the U.S. EPA yesterday issued a final rule that will require new diesel truck and bus engines to emit 40 percent less pollution by 2004. Later this year, the EPA intends to issue a rule that will mandate even cleaner engines by 2007 and […]

Wild Thing, I Think I'll Eat You

Afflicted by poverty and drought, millions of people in East and Southern Africa are increasingly hunting and eating wild animals and in the process endangering several hundred species, according to a report released yesterday by TRAFFIC, an international wildlife monitoring program. With the decline in numbers of traditional game species like buffalo, hunters are now […]

Skinnama-minke Minke Dink, Skinnama-minke Doo, I Love You

Norway announced yesterday that it is extending its controversial whaling season for another month because hunters have not yet filled the year’s quota of 655 minke whales. Norway conducts commercial hunts in defiance of a moratorium by the International Whaling Commission. Johan Williams of the nation’s Fisheries Ministry dismissed the possibility that failure to reach […]

General Excitement?

General Motors Corp. announced today that within a few years it will begin producing fuel-efficient, hybrid gas-electric versions of its full-size pickup trucks and city buses, just days after Ford announced its intention to boost the fuel economy of its SUVs by 25 percent over the next five years. GM Vice Chair Harry Pearce said […]