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What, a Team?
Celebs such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Pierce Brosnan, Ted Danson, Bette Midler, and Patrick Stewart have all taken on environmental causes, and enviros are welcoming the help, though they acknowledge that the pairing of indulgent Hollywood and the more simplicity-oriented environmental movement is sometimes an odd one. Denis Hayes, chair and CEO of Earth Day Network, […]
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The Dregs
After years of research, Starbucks has abandoned a prototype coffee cup designed to be more enviro-friendly. The world’s largest coffee retailer had been working to eliminate the need to double cup or use corrugated paper sleeves outside hot cups to protect customers’ hands. But those plans are now down the drain. The company didn’t get […]
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Oil's Not Well
A tanker carrying 8 million gallons of diesel oil broke in half during a storm yesterday and began leaking oil off the northwest coast of France. Officials at the Brest Port Authority, 60 miles away, estimated that between 600,000 and 1.5 million gallons of the oil had been spilled so far, and said it would […]
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Amazing Race
If a Republican had to be elected president, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) would be the first pick for enviro heavyweight Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In Arizona yesterday, Kennedy attacked the enviro record of GOP presidential frontrunner, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, and said that he also considered McCain’s overall history on the environment to be […]
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A Friend of the Devil Is No Friend of Mine
Speaking yesterday before the National Association of Manufacturers (can you say “polluters”?), Sen. Bob Smith (R-NH), the new chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, called for scrapping enviro laws that don’t work and for more flexibility in regulations considered onerous by business. Smith said to his industry chums, “You are good stewards, […]
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Drink, Poop, and Be Merry, for Next Year You'll Be Dry
Drinking water and sewage facilities are threatened by the Y2K computer bug, and lax oversight by the feds and industry are to blame, according to a reported released by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Y2K & Society. The report authors, based on surveys conducted by such groups as the American Water […]
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Two for the Show
In their first major joint venture, the Sierra Club and Amnesty International yesterday launched a worldwide campaign to protect environmentalists from harassment, imprisonment, torture, and death. Activists most urgently needing international help, according to the groups, include enviros fighting a gas pipeline project in Burma, an oil pipeline in Chad and Cameroon, the Three Gorges […]
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Step on the Gas
The California Air Resources Board yesterday unanimously approved a new formula for the state’s gasoline that will eliminate the clean-fuel additive MTBE while maintaining strict air quality improvements. The board set 2003 as a deadline to have MTBE removed; most oil companies in the state plan to substitute it with ethanol, a more expensive octane […]
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It's Bloomin' 'ot!
Scientists in England say 1999 will almost certainly be the warmest year ever recorded in the U.K., topping the previous high recorded in 1990 by about a tenth of a degree Celsius. Worldwide, 1999 is on track to be one of the 10 hottest years ever, but not nearly as warm as the blistering years […]
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Chew on This
Mattel, the world’s largest toymaker (think hourglass Barbies and those fun-to-chew-on Fisher-Price figures), has announced that it will begin a major push to make its plastic toys from more environmentally friendly, organically based materials such as oils and starches. The new materials would replace polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and a controversial group of chemicals called phthalates […]
