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You Can't Teach an Old Power Plant New Tricks
Emissions from New England’s 14 oldest power plants have increased for the third consecutive year, according to a report by environmental groups. The old plants aren’t held to the same standards as new ones because of a loophole in the Clean Air Act. In other dirty power plant news, the six New England states and […]
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Bosom Buddies
A coalition of members of Congress, health professionals, and women’s advocates yesterday sent a letter to Pres. Clinton demanding more money for research into potential environmental causes of breast cancer. The group wants further research into factors that might increase risk for the disease, including exposure to some fuels, plastics, detergents, pesticides, and pharmaceutical drugs. […]
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Set Aside This Insecticide
One of the most popular insecticides used around the home poses a health risk, the EPA is expected to announce today. A panel of pesticide experts at the agency is calling for tighter controls on the chemical, Dursban. Dow AgroSciences makes hundreds of millions of dollars each year from sales of Dursban, which is used […]
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Last Roundup?
The Yanacona Indians in Colombia are fighting to be able to pull up and destroy tens of thousands of poppy plants by hand rather than have police airplanes spray the land around them with herbicides as part of the war on drugs. The Yanacona say spraying, which often involves the herbicide Roundup, has caused sickness […]
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Dune and Gloom
A coalition of enviro groups sued the feds yesterday for failing to protect public lands in Utah from damage by off-road vehicles (ORV), including dune buggies and cross-country motorcycles. A recent study by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance found widespread ORV damage on public lands in the state, including areas being considered for wilderness designation. […]
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Dam, That Was Brave
Ten enviro activists riled up the British by staging a daring protest yesterday on the world’s largest ferris wheel, which is under construction in central London and is scheduled to open on New Year’s Eve. The enviros, from the Basque group Solidarios con Itioz and the Indian organization Narmada, were demonstrating against major dam projects […]
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To Russia, With Love
As delegates from 150 nations gather in Bonn, Germany, this week to hammer out some details on the Kyoto climate change agreement, Russia is pushing for a system that would allow it to sell permits for carbon dioxide emissions. Under Kyoto, Russia is supposed to maintain its CO2 emissions at 1990 levels, but the post-Soviet […]
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From Russia, Without Love
Russian police are targeting environmentalists and anti-nuclear activists in a security crackdown that gained momentum after a terrorist scare last month. Police have interrogated at least seven enviros in the past two months and searched some of their homes, and at least one of them is still in jail, activists say. The enviros, who are […]
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More Green, Less House
U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases, which cause climate change, rose just 0.02 percent last year, the smallest annual increase since the recession year of 1991, according to the Department of Energy. At the same time, the U.S. economy grew by 3.9 percent. DOE economist Arthur Rypinski said it would take several years of similar data […]
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Energy Boom
As Asia’s population expands and its burgeoning middle classes pursue more energy-intensive lifestyles, Northeast Asian nations are turning to nuclear energy to meet growing demand, building many nuclear power plants and planning hundreds more. Many of the region’s citizens are uncomfortable with this trend, especially after the accident last month at a nuclear fuel facility […]
