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River (of Grass) Phoenix
The wildfires raging through 160,000 acres in the Florida Everglades are part of a natural cycle and will help renourish the ecosystem, forestry officials say. Most animals have survived, and the blazes burn dry bush and make room for new plant growth. “This is actually like a rebirth process. Three months from now you probably […]
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A Warm Welcome to Generation Y
College students are getting riled up over climate change, pressuring their schools to divest of financial holdings in companies considered responsible for global warming. Student governments and investment advisory committees at Stanford, Harvard, and the University of Washington recently passed resolutions calling for an end to university investments in companies making up the Global Climate […]
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Warm Globally, Wet Locally
In other climate change news, a new federal study has found that the U.S. has gotten markedly wetter during the last third of a century, and while the rest of the world is getting warmer, the continental U.S. seems to have actually gotten a touch cooler since 1966.
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Goodbye, Iron Curtain. Hello, Uranium Dump.
Russian and U.S. officials are expressing interest in a deal with a private U.S. company that wants store foreign nuclear power-plant waste in Russia. The company’s plan is to raise about $6 billion in storage fees from Taiwan, Korea, and other nations, primarily in Asia, that have spent nuclear fuel but nowhere to store it. […]
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Read My Lips: Lots More Salmon
Environmental groups are banding together with taxpayer advocates to argue that removing four dams on the Snake River not only would make sense for salmon but could save taxpayers billions of dollars. The enviros are trying to turn a Northwest issue into a national issue and wrest power from political leaders in the region who […]
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Bright Lights, Big City, Dead Turtles
Bright lights from cars and homes near Daytona Beach, Fla., may have to be dimmed to protect endangered sea turtles, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday. The court refused to throw out a case in which wildlife advocates sued a Florida county for failing to restrict artificial lighting on the beach, which distracts newly hatched sea […]
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Oh, And It's Safe to Drive Without a Seat Belt, Too
An arm of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention loosened its mercury contamination standard yesterday, proclaiming it safe for people to consume three times as much mercury as the EPA advises. State health officials often use the standard to calculate advisories on how much fish people can safely eat. Environmentalists were joined by […]
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The Personal Environmental Ethics of a Real Stud
Chris Johnson is walking through the spruce-fir forest in Grand Mesa-Uncompahgre National Forest in western Colorado. Whip-thin and blond as a teenager, the 46-year-old wields his chainsaw as if it were a feather duster, touching it to the limbs that are in his way. They fall behind him. Photo: Lisa Jones. He’s cutting a trail. […]
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Power to the People
Earth Day 1999 — April 22 — will mark the beginning of a year-long “New Energy for a New Era” campaign leading up to Earth Day 2000. Denis Hayes, who was national coordinator of the first Earth Day in 1970, is leading the charge. The goal is to rally hundreds of millions to push for […]
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One More Reason War Is Hell
NATO airstrikes at an oil refinery and petrochemical complex near Belgrade, Yugoslavia, early this morning unleashed a torrent of black smoke and toxic fumes into the air. Some 50 people were reportedly treated for gas poisoning. Serb officials said that to avoid further explosions, they were compelled to dump chlorine-based, carcinogenic chemicals into the Danube […]
