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The Perfect Ploy
Environmentalists are trying to parlay the box-office success of the “The Perfect Storm,” a movie that follows the ill-fated voyage of a commercial fishing boat, into increased awareness of the depleted swordfish population in the Atlantic. SeaWeb, a conservation group running a public education campaign centered on the film, says too many swordfish are being […]
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Simply Grand
Thousands of Californians are embracing a new state program that gives residents $1,000 to junk cars and trucks that fail to meet emission standards. The program, launched July 7, aims to take 50,000 polluting clunkers off the roads over the next four years. Residents can alternatively get up to $500 to make repairs that will […]
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Gobi, Gobi, Gone
High prices for cashmere made from the wool of goats is leading in part to overgrazing of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. In the last decade, the number of livestock in Mongolia jumped more than 30 percent, and the number of herders rose by 300 percent, to about 440,000. Many of the newcomers to the […]
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Rara Avis
Travelers to some U.S. cities can now rent eco-friendly cars. EV Rental Cars opened its first site at the Los Angeles airport in December 1998 and has since expanded to several other California airports. The company recently struck a long-term deal with Budget Rent-a-Car and has plans to open sites this year in Atlanta, Dallas, […]
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Mall Rats
Days after the Clinton-Gore administration gave its endorsement last year to a controversial shopping complex to be built in a sensitive wetlands area in New Jersey, the development company’s executives and their relatives donated at least $31,000 to Al Gore’s presidential campaign. Enviros have long opposed the mall because it would require filling more than […]
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Beat the Tom Tom
Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) and a number of Republican state lawmakers asked a federal judge yesterday to suspend the EPA clean air regulations that require the use of smog-reducing reformulated gasoline in southern Wisconsin. They claim that the regulations are a big cause of high gas prices in the state, while the federal government […]
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The Dark Side of Pak Moon
Poor citizens of Thailand have begun teaming up with non-governmental organizations and academics to protest environmentally destructive development projects being undertaken without their input. Over the past year and a half, thousands of people have demonstrated in the village of Pak Moon against a hydroelectric dam, funded in part by the World Bank, which is […]
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Soar Spot
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has shelved plans to remove the American bald eagle from the endangered species list in time for the Fourth of July. On July 2, 1999, President Clinton announced that the eagle had made a strong recovery and was expected to be removed from the list by July 2000. But […]
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Block Heads
A high-profile emergency spending package that passed the House last night contains a rider that would block the U.S. EPA from implementing major new rules meant to clean up the nation’s waterways. Under the rules, which the agency intends to finalize this summer, states would be required to determine the total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) […]
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Al Gore Hiss
Al Gore continued laying out his energy and environment plan yesterday, proposing $25 billion in subsidies over 10 years for eco-friendly mass transit. But he affirmed the right of all Americans to drive their cars anywhere they want, anytime they want. “I reject the idea that in order to have a clean environment and reduce […]
