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Expensive Willy

Norway’s whale hunters have faced vehement anti-whaling protests this year, but their biggest problem may be that Norwegians are eating less whale meat. The number of minke whales killed this year, 589, was 36 fewer than last year, the first drop since Norway defied the International Whaling Commission and resumed commercial hunting in 1993. Even […]

How Do They Harm Thee? We Can't Count the Ways

A prominent U.S. panel of scientists has concluded that not enough is known about hormone-altering chemicals to calculate their risks to humans. In a report requested by Congress, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences yesterday acknowledged that pesticides and other chemicals that mimic estrogen and block male hormones seem to be feminizing some […]

Strip Joint Visit

Israel’s new environment minister, Dalia Itzik, on Monday toured the blighted Gaza Strip with her Palestinian counterpart, Yousef Abu Safieh, marking the beginning of what they hope will be an era of cooperation in addressing the region’s environmental woes. Discussion between the two was polite, but each side pointed to problems the other had caused. […]

A Match Made in Hell?

Dow Chemical is moving to buy Union Carbide in a huge $9.3 billion deal that would create a worldwide chemical industry giant, second in size only to DuPont. The deal still needs approval from the boards of both companies. Union Carbide is perhaps best known for the world’s worst recorded industrial accident, in which a […]

Dead in the Water

The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico has doubled in size since last year to 7,728 square miles, larger than it’s ever been before — and larger than New Jersey. The dead zone, a layer of water at the bottom of the Gulf so low in oxygen that it can’t support life, forms annually, […]

Coke Ain't It

Coca-Cola has reneged on a promise to use recycled plastic in its bottles, an environmental group charged this week. The GrassRoots Recycling Network, an umbrella organization for some 400 enviro groups, criticized Coke in an ad in Monday’s New York Times, and plans to run a series of similar ads in various other publications. In […]

Protecting the Apples of Our Eye

Citing health risks to children, the EPA yesterday restricted the use of two pesticides widely used on apples and other crops. But enviros say the agency has bowed to industry pressure and failed to crack down on the most dangerous pesticides. The Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups plan to sue the EPA […]

The Squad of Small Slings

Thousands of Indians joined author Arundhati Roy and other activists Sunday in the central Indian village of Pathrad to protest dam projects that they say would uproot local people. The Maheshwar Hydel Project, a dam under construction by a private company, would submerge 61 villages, including Pathrad. Another construction plan, the Narmada Valley Development project, […]

Quoth the Raven, "Endeavor More"

Unless we act quickly and decisively, one-third of the plant species on Earth could go extinct within 50 years, Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, said yesterday at a conference of the International Botanical Congress in St. Louis, Mo. Among Raven’s recommendations is the creation of a new political entity, probably under the […]

A Buttload of Energy

The Department of Energy is putting $5 million into a project to transform manure, sewage, food wastes, and agricultural leftovers into electric power. A pilot plant is expected to process up to 100 tons a day of waste, which will be combined into a low-cost, energy-rich combustible slurry that could be used cleanly in conventional […]