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Russians Play Roulette with Pollution
Many Russian towns, heavily polluted by decades of emissions from filthy factories, are facing a devil’s choice between keeping factories running and thus endangering residents’ health or shutting them down and impoverishing residents. In the southern town of Karabash, where a 90-year-old copper-smelting plant long spewed pollution, two-thirds of the children in the town suffer […]
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Lynx Report Un-Vail-ed
A recent government report unearthed by environmentalists notes “substantial” evidence that rare Canada lynx live on land that the Vail ski resort in Colorado wants to use for a multimillion-dollar expansion. In a lawsuit now before a federal appeals court, environmentalists allege that the U.S. Forest Service approved Vail’s expansion plans without regard for the […]
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Does This Deal MacBlo?
Environmentalists are wary of a deal announced yesterday in which U.S.-based Weyerhaeuser will pay nearly $2.5 billion in stock for Canada’s MacMillan Bloedel, merging two major North American timber and paper companies. MacMillan Bloedel has been at the center of many environmental conflicts over old-growth logging in British Columbia. Last year, the company announced that […]
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Feds Want to Pass Wind to Consumers
The federal government today will announce a new plan to buy 5 percent of its electricity from wind-generated sources by 2010, the first move in an effort to shift 5 percent of total energy use in the U.S. to wind over the next decade. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson says that wind, which now provides 0.1 […]
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A Not-So-Glowing Future
Germany is nearing a deal with its major utilities to close all the nation’s nuclear power plants by 2023. If a formal round of talks scheduled for tomorrow goes as planned, each of Germany’s 19 nuclear plants would be phased out after 35 years online, the first one going out of service in 2003 and […]
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I Could Have Had a Hormone-Free G8!
The U.S. and Canada blocked efforts this weekend at a G8 summit to create an international body that would have policed global food standards and instituted a ban on genetically modified crops and hormone-treated meat until a scientific panel assessed the safety of the foods. French Pres. Jacques Chirac pressed for the new measures, but […]
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Smokey's on Your Tailpipe
Nine northeastern states agreed on Friday to crack down on diesel pollution from big trucks and buses, launching a coordinated effort to begin roadside inspections and give tickets to heavily smoking vehicles. Meanwhile, the EPA this month is weighing a plan to require diesel fuel to be cleaner, which trucking companies complain would make the […]
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Park and Ride
Officials in Grand Canyon National Park recently broke ground on a new light-rail system that will completely change transportation inside the park, cutting vehicle traffic by 80 percent. Once the system is completed, most visitors will be required to leave their cars in a lot well outside the park and enter by light-rail; once inside […]
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It's for the Birds
More than 2000 acres of coastal wetlands surrounded by development in the San Diego area were designated a federal wildlife refuge last week. The new South San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge — the result of 20 years of work by enviros, community groups, and governments — will protect a critical stopping ground for migratory […]
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Hey You, Take That Back
European automakers are up in arms over a bill that would require them to take back and recycle old cars. A draft of the bill was expected to be approved next week by environment ministers from the 15 EU countries, but lobbying by automakers may hold up the process. The measure would force car manufacturers […]
