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Ted's Bill: Bogus
Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens (R) is stirring up trouble again with a rider attached to an appropriations bill that would exempt Alaska salmon fishing from the Endangered Species Act. The Clinton administration has threatened to veto the bill over the rider, a move that could jeopardize not only the Columbia River chinook stocks that migrate […]
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Schroeder Plays a New Song
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder opened the fifth U.N. World Climate Conference yesterday in Bonn, Germany, with an unexpected call to developed nations to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change by 2002. Thus far, only 14 countries, most of them developing, small island nations already threatened by rising sea levels, have ratified the treaty, which […]
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Willy Wonks and the Toxic Factories
Orca whales in the waters around Washington state and British Columbia are severely contaminated with PCBs, which can weaken the animals’ immune systems and hamper reproduction, according to a comprehensive, new study by Canadian and American scientists. Researchers took samples from 47 killer whales and found that they are 400 to 500 times more contaminated […]
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Dear John
Rhode Island Sen. John Chafee, a moderate Republican who worked to fashion bipartisan solutions to environmental problems, died unexpectedly of heart failure last night, at the age of 77. Chafee, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, played a significant role in the passage of the 1988 law against ocean dumping, the 1989 […]
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This Story Made Us Yak
The Wild Yak Brigade, a group of wildlife vigilantes working to protect the chiru, a gazelle-like animal that lives high on the Tibetan plateau, is under fire from poachers and the Chinese government. The chiru — whose fur is turned into shahtoosh wool, which is sought to make fashionable and expensive shawls — is joining […]
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No Fences Make Good Neighbors
The neighboring nations of Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe yesterday agreed to create a transborder conservation area with the aim of protecting biodiversity and promoting socioeconomic development in the region. The new Transfrontier Conservation Areas will pool the management of Mozambique’s Gaza Park, South Africa’s Kruger National Park, and Zimbabwe’s Gonarezhou Park. The agreement, signed […]
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Trick or Treaty?
Dissension is likely to dominate the two weeks of international negotiations on climate change that are getting underway today in Bonn, Germany. The U.S. and Europe will likely butt heads over emissions trading, which the U.S. wants to use extensively but Europe wants to limit as industrial nations work to meet commitments made in the […]
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Told You So
The economy in the Northwest didn’t go into a tailspin after the feds curtailed logging in the early 1990s to protect old-growth forests and the northern spotted owl, according to a new report by three Oregon economists from ECONorthwest, an economic consulting company. Rather, the economy seems to have performed better, in part because forest […]
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Can't Bear the Thought
Tension is rising in British Columbia as timber companies begin to log what many call the Great Bear Rain Forest along Canada’s western coast, a vast, largely undisturbed old-growth area comprising one quarter of the world’s remaining temperate rainforest. Arguing that the economy needed a boost, the British Columbia government recently slashed logging royalties to […]
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Girl, You'll Be a Woman Sooner
A chemical used in everything from baby bottles to tin can linings seems to have caused premature puberty and increased body weight in female mice, according to new research published in the journal Nature. The chemical, bisphenol A, is thought to be an endocrine disrupter, which can upset hormone systems in humans and other animals. […]
