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My Toxic Idaho
Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.) is joining forces with enviros, ski bums, actor Harrison Ford, World Bank Pres. James Wolfensohn, and a host of Wyoming residents to fight plans to build a nuclear waste incinerator in Idaho. Two environmental groups plan to file suit today against the Energy Department, seeking an injunction to stop construction by […]
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Far Fewer Firs Felled in Federal Forests
Logging on federal lands in the Northwest has dropped by two-thirds this year because of judicial rulings holding up timber sales, and the feds have stopped negotiating for any new sales in Oregon and Washington. Northwest lawmakers complain that it could be a year or more before logging of federal lands returns to expected levels, […]
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Greens Vs. Genes
Enviros fighting genetically modified foods in Britain scored a point today when the government announced that it would not fight a legal challenge against its licensing of crop trials. Friends of the Earth had gone to court to stop a trial planting of genetically modified rapeseed, arguing that the government illegally made changes to the […]
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Going Bananas over Kiwis
The kiwi bird, New Zealand’s national symbol, is in danger of going extinct within five to 10 years, enviros warn. New Zealand’s kiwi population is now estimated at 70,000, down from 5 million in 1923. Though the population has been declining for decades, a recent study by New Zealand’s Forest and Bird Society, which found […]
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Car and Drivel
Heavy lobbying by the auto industry thwarted efforts in the Senate to toughen fuel-economy standards for automobiles, particularly light trucks and sport utility vehicles. By a 55-40 vote, the Senate voted yesterday to maintain a five-year freeze on studying possible changes to the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards, which have not been changed since […]
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Chicks Dig It
A high-tech composting technique in which natural soil bacteria and fungi are combined with chicken droppings is now being used to clean up areas contaminated by DDT and other toxic pesticides. The method, which was patented in the U.S. this week, involves digging up polluted soil and creating carefully controlled compost heaps that let soil […]
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Beetlemania
Two native Indian groups in Canada plan to begin logging immediately on government land, acts of open defiance against the British Columbia government. Yesterday, more than 100 native leaders threw their support behind the Westbank Tribal Nation, which says it is exercising its aboriginal and common-law rights to log forests in its traditional territories. The […]
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Oops, I'd Forgotten It Was World Ozone Day
Today, on World Ozone Day, the U.N. is warning that the growing illegal trade in CFCs could seriously hamper efforts to end the consumption and production of the ozone-depleting substance. CFC smugglers are expected to turn their attention to large developing nations like India and China, where there are millions of users of CFC-based equipment. […]
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If You Build It, Floyd Will Come
While residents along the East Coast of the U.S. make emergency preparations and evacuate as Hurricane Floyd heads inland, coastal scientists and policy makers worry that rising sea levels and more intense storms are likely to cause an increasing number of disasters in coastal areas. Population growth is booming along U.S. coasts, in part because […]
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Not the Same Old Gas
Climate scientists are abandoning their old estimates about greenhouse gas emissions, saying there are too many uncertainties to predict likely future levels. A new draft report on emissions by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which encompasses the views of hundreds of leading scientists and economists, does not present just one likely scenario, as […]
