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I'll Have No Truck With Diesel

Under a landmark agreement announced yesterday, the three largest grocery chains in Southern California will buy 150 alternative-fuel big rigs to replace heavily polluting diesel trucks. The deal settles a lawsuit filed in 1998 by enviro groups and the state attorney general’s office, which alleged that the companies were exposing people to hazardous diesel exhaust […]

Growth Negligence

Halting the spread of new human settlements is the only way to save the world’s “biodiversity hotspots,” according to a new study published in the journal Nature. Nearly 20 percent of the world’s 6 billion people live in the most species-rich and environmentally threatened areas, says Robert Engelman of Population Action International, one of the […]

Everyone's Doing Their Mega-Bit

More than 20,000 people around the world are donating their spare computing power to aid a scientific experiment that is attempting to forecast the climate of the 21st century. The Casino-21 project asks volunteers to keep their personal computers running around the clock so that when they are not otherwise in use, the PCs can […]

Fishy Chips

Enviros are pushing for a moratorium on new chip mills in the Southeast, calling on Tennessee and other states to follow the lead of Missouri, which decided last week to ban new chip mills for two years while a study is conducted on their environmental and economic impact. Large timber companies are increasingly clear-cutting forests […]

Right to Know-Nothing

To the disappointment of enviros, the Clinton administration yesterday proposed regulations that would allow the U.S. EPA to post only a limited amount of information on the web about worst-case disaster scenarios involving toxic chemicals stored at facilities around the country. The EPA had initially intended to post all available information about possible toxic accidents, […]

Sunny Delight

Arizona became the first state in the nation yesterday to require utilities to produce a small portion of their electricity from solar sources. The Arizona Corporation Commission unanimously approved a requirement that utilities generate at least 0.2 percent of their power from renewable sources next year, and at least 50 percent of that from solar […]

A Snowmobile's Chance in Hell

The National Park Service today banned the recreational use of snowmobiles in nearly all national parks, recreational areas, and monuments, saying they have had a “significant adverse environmental effect” on the park system. The only exceptions are parks in Alaska and Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota, where Congress has specifically allowed snowmobiles. More than 180,000 […]

Uptown Girl, Downbeat News

The rate of infant deaths near five nuclear power plants dropped substantially after the nuclear reactors were closed, according to a new study published in the spring edition of the Journal of Environmental Epidemiology and Toxicology. The study suggests that the health of people who live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant may […]

Brand-Name Genes

A coalition of enviro groups yesterday petitioned the Agriculture Department to tighten its regulation of genetically engineered crops, accusing the department of approving new biotech plants without requiring adequate tests to assure that they won’t harm the environment. Plants that are artificially engineered to be resistant to pests could pass along resistance genes to weeds […]

This Makes Us Yak

China has plundered Tibet’s natural resources and severely polluted the region’s environment, according to a report by the exiled Tibetan government based in India. The report, to be presented today to the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development, accuses China of uncontrolled deforestation, mining, and dumping of nuclear waste. Forty-six percent of Tibet’s forest cover has […]