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Oh Goody, 17 More Months of Gore Puns
Al Gore officially kicked off his presidential campaign yesterday in Tennessee, making brief mention of the environment. “Some want to cut back on environmental protection and let polluters off the hook. I will never let that happen,” he said, making a clear comparison between himself and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the leading Republican candidate, […]
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Is the military about to blow its chance to protect southwestern desert land?
A bombshell exploded a few weeks ago in the midst of tangled negotiations over the fate of the 2.7 million-acre Barry M. Goldwater Bombing Range in the Sonoran Desert of southwestern Arizona. Mohawk Dunes, Goldwater Bombing Range. The Air Force accidentally dropped a 500-pound bomb April 30 on a part of the range that the […]
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Maple Leaf's Rag
A Canadian company plans to sue the U.S. government under NAFTA, seeking $970 million in damages because California has banned MTBE, a methanol-based gasoline additive that is a key source of revenue for the company. California Gov. Gray Davis (D) in March announced that the state would phase out MTBE, which helps fuel burn more […]
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More Road Kill
More people are killed by pollution from cars in Austria, France, and Switzerland than by car crashes, according to a report released yesterday by the World Health Organization. Long-term exposure to auto pollution in the three nations caused 21,000 premature deaths a year from heart and respiratory disease, as well as hundreds of thousands of […]
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Biotech Bugs Pesticide Makers
As more farmers plant crops genetically engineered to be bug-resistant, the market for insecticides and weed-killers is falling. Cotton farmers have cut the amount of insecticide they apply to their fields by 12 percent, or about 2 million pounds, since bug-resistant cotton plants hit the fields three years ago, according to the National Center for […]
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Nuke Waste Solution: Do Nothing
Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) today plans to introduce a bill taking on the volatile issue of how the feds should store thousands of tons of high-level nuclear waste from power plants until a permanent repository is built. The bill would have the federal government take title to the waste but leave it at reactor sites […]
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The Great Wail of China
Acid rain falls on 30 percent of China, according to an official government report on the nation’s environment released yesterday. The nation’s main air pollutant is coal dust laced with sulfur dioxide. The report also found that 10 percent of Chinese companies fail to follow environmental regulations. Some progress has been made in cleaning up […]
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Fields of Bad Dreams
Young children exposed to electromagnetic fields from power lines and other sources are nearly five times more likely to develop leukemia, according to a study released today by Canadian and U.S. scientists. However, the scientists have no biological explanation for what is causing the disease. A separate report released yesterday by the U.S. National Institutes […]
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Chinese Hot and Sour over Pollution
China’s top environmental official said today that the nation is still plagued by serious environmental degradation, though continuing efforts are being made to keep it in check. China, which is home to nine of the world’s 10 most polluted cities, is instituting a plan that requires 49 cities to reduce their air pollution to 1995 […]
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A Beacon in the Smog
The EPA, blocked by two recent court orders from implementing new clean air standards and rules, unveiled a scaled-back approach yesterday for cracking down on polluting power plants and industrial facilities. The approach relies on petitions filed by four states — Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania — that said they could not meet even […]
