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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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

No Crocodile Tears

The endangered American crocodile seems to have made a strong comeback in the last 20 years, researchers say. When it was listed as an endangered species in 1975, there were only 20 nesting females living within a 20-square-mile area in Miami-Dade County and the Florida Keys. Now there are an estimated 500 crocodiles in south […]

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Wilderness

Before July 4, the Clinton administration plans to ask Congress to set aside as wilderness 5 million acres of land that now lie within 17 national parks, prohibiting new development and roads. The biggest single change under the plan would give wilderness protection to more than 90 percent Yellowstone National Park’s 2.2 million acres, as […]

Clean Up Your Womb

Pesticides and industrial chemicals have been detected for the first time in the amniotic fluids of pregnant women, raising fears about how chemical exposure affects human development both before and after birth. A team of American and Canadian researchers, who presented their preliminary findings at a conference in San Diego yesterday, said about 30 percent […]