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Paint By the Numbers

Air quality officials and enviros on Friday announced a deal that would set an exact course for cleaning up smog in Los Angeles for the next 10 years and end a quarter of a century of costly feuds and litigation. Under the settlement, which still must be approved by a federal judge, the South Coast […]

What a Team!

Enviro and labor groups across the country are increasingly joining forces, most recently at the World Trade Organization talks in Seattle, to fight against globalization and the consolidation of economic power. In the past year, for example, Maine forest workers and enviros together protested the effects of NAFTA on the North Woods; blue-collar workers in […]

Down the Hatch

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt today will ask Pres. Clinton to create at least four new national monuments, including two in Arizona and two in California. Some 1 million acres northwest of Grand Canyon National Park, tens of thousands of acres near Phoenix, 10,000 acres south of San Jose, and thousands of small, uninhabited islands off […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]