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Fringe Benefits
The federal government will pay a fringe religious group $13 million for 9,300 acres of land surrounding Yellowstone National Park. The area will provide additional grazing grounds for herds of American bison from the park, and migration corridors for grizzly bears, elk, antelope, bighorn sheep, and other wildlife. Enviros had feared that the religious group’s […]
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Refined Tastes
Construction is slated to begin next year on a “bio-refinery” in California that will convert thousands of tons of orchard prunings, rice straw, and other agricultural wastes into ethanol, which could be used as a gasoline additive in place of MTBE. In other clean energy news, sales of geothermal heat pumps jumped 20 percent in […]
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Mediterranean Sea-ing Stars
The Mediterranean Sea is facing an ecological disaster if the nations along its shores don’t curb their polluting ways, according to a Greenpeace report released last Thursday. Greenpeace is pushing countries to ratify the Barcelona Convention, an agreement on protection of the sea, before the biannual Mediterranean Ministerial Meeting to be held this October. The […]
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Farmers in Sheep's Clothing
Two farmers and two counties in eastern North Carolina are suing the federal government, seeking to nullify endangered species rules that provided for the reintroduction of the red wolf into the area a dozen years ago. As the wolf population grows, farmers say the rules keep them from protecting their livestock against wolf attacks. The […]
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Green Berets
Greens in the French coalition government warned yesterday that they would quit the coalition if the cabinet proceeds with plans to replace aging nuclear plants with new reactors. The Greens regularly campaign for the elimination of nuclear energy, which provides 80 percent of France’s power, but this latest threat highlights their discontent with Socialist leadership. […]
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No Thanksgiving for Turkey
Even as Turkey grapples with the human tragedies caused by Tuesday’s earthquake, the nation is also confronted with serious environmental problems produced by the quake. The primary concern is a fire at Turkey’s biggest oil refinery in Korfez, which contains 700,000 tons of oil and has been burning out of control. On Wednesday, tens of […]
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Parliament Funkadelic
A bill to be considered by the Zambia parliament next week would strengthen forest protections in the country, as well as allow local communities, non-governmental organizations, and other interested parties to participate in the management of forests. The bill would also give the nation’s environment minister the ability to declare species endangered and require the […]
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Of Mice and Estrogen
Research exploring the possible health risks of chemicals may be flawed because the mice used in lab experiments may be genetically tolerant of the pollutants to which they are being exposed, according to a new study in the journal Science. Researchers at the University of California at Davis exposed several strains of mice to chemicals […]
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The Dirt on Dirt
Improved farming practices and soil conservation measures in the U.S. have significantly reduced soil erosion problems, according to a study published in today’s issue of the journal Science. Stanley Trimble of the University of California at Los Angeles conducted a 26-year study of an area in Wisconsin and found that the soil erosion rate there […]
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Panel to Court: Kiss My Asthma
A government panel of air-pollution experts is pressing the EPA to accelerate its research into possible health problems caused by particulate pollution, despite a federal court ruling this spring that cast doubt on the agency’s power to regulate the tiny soot particles. The panel, assembled by the National Research Council, said that disrupting research into […]
