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Whale Meets Its Makah

Makah Indians this morning successfully harpooned and killed a whale off the coast of Washington state, the first whale kill by the tribe in more than 70 years. No protestors were in the area when the whale was hit. Protestors have dogged the whalers since their hunt began last week; four of their vessels have […]

Does the W. Stand for Waffle?

Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the leading GOP presidential hopeful, has seen the light on climate change. “I believe there is global warming,” he said at a news conference on Thursday. Just a few weeks ago, Bush had said that the “science is still out” on the issue, but since then he’s had some briefings […]

Unappealing Ruling

A federal appeals court on Friday threw a wrench into the Clinton administration’s plans to tighten air quality regulations, ruling that the EPA overstepped its authority by adopting new standards for ozone and particulates in 1997. The judges found that the EPA’s actions were unconstitutional and that the agency had failed to show that the […]

Blame It on IMF, Not Rio?

Brazil’s recession is taking a toll on its rainforest. The nation, in an effort to show the world that it can control its spending and to comply with conditions for a $41.5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, has made deep cuts in its budget, including slashing funding by half for the Environment Ministry. […]

Painting the Town Green

Southern California’s smog-fighting agency is cracking down on paint makers, requiring them to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to help clean the region’s air. The South Coast Air Quality Management District on Friday adopted tough new rules that will force manufacturers to make expensive reformulations to nearly half the industrial and household paints and […]

Boat Flight at the Not-OK Coral

A shrimp boat plowed into a coral reef off Mexico’s coast this weekend, causing extensive damage to 1,290 square yards of coral, one of the worst cases of damage to a Mexican reef in years. Marine traffic is outlawed in the reef area near Cancun, but the boat moved into the area after its engines […]

A review of 'The New Wolves' by Rick Bass

In The New Wolves: The Return of the Mexican Wolf to the American Southwest, Rick Bass ambles pensively and passionately through the controversial ground in Arizona's Blue Mountains where Mexican wolves are being reintroduced. He walks alongside a host of folks with divergent perspectives on the reintroduction effort: unflappable federal wildlife agents; bright-eyed students; newfangled "predator-friendly" ranchers; faithful volunteers; and a reintroduction foe who seems to have the wolves' best interests at heart. Bass takes in all their views and paints them with empathy and respect, while never letting go of his own deeply held belief that wolves simply belong on this land.

A review of 'Totem Salmon' by Freeman House

In the wake of the federal government's much trumpeted decision in March to confer threatened and endangered status upon nine salmon runs in Washington and Oregon, Northwesterners will need to reevaluate their relationship with this once mighty species, a cultural icon as well as biological keystone. An ideal beginning would be to delve into Freeman House's Totem Salmon: Life Lessons from Another Species.

TRI a Little Harder

Reported toxic chemical releases from industrial plants grew by 2.2 percent in 1997, following years of decline, the EPA announced yesterday. The increase was attributed largely to plants sending more metal wastes to landfills rather than recycling centers because metal recycling prices increased. Emissions have dropped almost 43 percent since the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) […]