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Another Writ from Ritt
The European Union is in danger of missing its target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the European Commission announced yesterday, urging European nations to quickly agree on proposals to cut emissions. The EU pledged at the 1997 Kyoto climate change talks to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 8 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. Acting […]
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Swap Swatted
The U.S. Forest Service failed to take into account potential harm to natural resources and damage to an ancient Indian trail when it approved a major forest land swap with Weyerhaeuser in Washington state, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. The court said Weyerhaeuser, which has already logged part of the land since acquiring it […]
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A Strike at Snake Dams
A utility district in west-central Oregon this week became the first to back breaching of four federal dams on the lower Snake River to help restore endangered salmon runs. The utility sent a letter to the Clinton administration urging partial dam removal, asserting that breaching the dams represented the best way to save the salmon […]
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George W. Fission for a Position
Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R), the leading GOP presidential hopeful, is staking positions on controversial environmental issues in his home state. The Texas House is considering a bill that would allow old industrial plants that have been exempted from Clean Air Act regulations to ease into compliance voluntarily. Bush supports the bill, while enviros […]
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Better Red Than Dead?
Russia’s 147 million citizens are facing desperate health problems, in part because of the nation’s environmental degradation. In an upcoming issue of Policy Review, Harvard demographer Nicholas Eberstadt writes about Russia’s public health crisis, claiming that “No industrialized country has ever before suffered such a severe and prolonged deterioration during peacetime.” In the first half […]
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Republicanes Plan to Mocke Ale Goree
House Republicans are gearing up to ridicule Al Gore for his environmental leanings, hoping to make him the butt of late-night TV jokes just as Dan Quayle was. Today, several conservative House members plan to read on the House floor what they consider to be the most controversial sections of Gore’s 1992 book Earth in […]
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U.N. Says Yugoslav Environment Still Da Bomb
NATO’s bombardment of Yugoslavia seems not to have caused significant environmental damage, U.N. officials and some environmental groups said yesterday. Still, an official from the U.N. Environment Programme will continue to assess the situation during a visit to Yugoslavia this week as part of a larger U.N. humanitarian team. Yugoslavia has claimed that massive amounts […]
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Habitat's Where Babbitt's At
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt unveiled an ambitious plan yesterday to protect 68 threatened and endangered species living in southern Florida. Babbitt said the government hopes the plan will become a model for approaching species protection on a comprehensive, regional, multi-species level rather than with a piecemeal approach. Under the plan, the feds would work with […]
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About Face … Backward, March
The U.S. auto industry is doing an about-face on the environment. Sort of. A six-article opus in the New York Times today focuses on the steps the industry is taking to improve its environmental record, mostly due to the perception that green issues are becoming increasingly important to customers. But the automakers still protest U.S. […]
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Airing Their Opinions
The editorial pages of the nation’s major papers weighed in this week on an appeals court decision released last Friday that invalidated air quality standards for ozone and particulates approved by Pres. Clinton in 1997. The New York Times and Washington Post criticized the ruling, with the Times saying it has “shaky constitutional underpinnings” and […]
