Latest Articles

Bush administration cites “national security” as reason to skirt enviro rules

What are the enviro impacts of a construction project on the U.S.-Mexico border? Photo: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Bush administration has proposed yet another list of environmental sacrifices that it believes America should make for the War on Terror. Last year, President Bush pushed through legislation that exempts military training bases from cornerstone […]

Takin’ Care of Business

Business Starts to Get Real About Global Warming It’s no secret that a broad consensus exists in the scientific community: Climate change is a real, human-caused problem that needs to be dealt with, quickly. But it may come as a surprise that a similar consensus is steadily growing in the business community as well. Business […]

Who’ll Stop the Drain?

Bush Policies Leading to Wetlands Loss, Report Says Bush has trumpeted wetlands policy as the primary evidence of his environmental bona fides. But four national enviro groups beg to differ, releasing a report today claiming that thousands of acres of wetlands have been drained by developers under a policy adopted by the Bush administration. At […]

A for Initiative

Colorado Campaign for Renewable-Energy Initiative Kicks Off In November, Colorado citizens will vote on the first-ever statewide initiative on renewable energy. The Colorado Renewable Energy Initiative would require that the state’s major utility companies generate 10 percent of their energy from renewable sources — solar, biomass, wind, hydro, and geothermal — by 2015. A bipartisan […]

Filet Retardant

Farmed Salmon Contain Flame Retardants The same research team that found more PCBs in farmed salmon than in wild salmon has found similar results for another scarily acronymed family of chemicals: PBDEs, or polybrominated diphenyl ethers, flame retardants found in electronics and fabrics. PBDEs have not been conclusively proven to cause harm to human health, […]

New Jersey’s Democratic governor takes tricks from Bush’s book

Gov. James McGreevey (left) and DEP chief Bradley Campbell. In the run-up to the 2004 election, those who have high hopes that a change in administration will automatically mean the curbing of environmental abuses by government should look to recent events in New Jersey for a cautionary tale. In the Garden State, Democratic Gov. James […]

If Not for You Meddling Kids …

Judge Spanks Commerce Secretary Over Dolphin-Safe Rules In a ruling made public yesterday, a federal judge resoundingly rejected the efforts of Bush administration officials to relax “dolphin-safe” standards for tuna. U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson’s ruling was, to put it mildly, strongly worded. “The record is replete with evidence that [Commerce Secretary Donald Evans] was […]

Mineral Wrongs

Natural Resources Fuel Brutal War in Congo In the U.S., communities can be inconvenienced by the extraction of natural resources — increased air pollution, say, or loss of undeveloped land. But it’s worth remembering that in other parts of the world, the stakes are quite a bit higher. Case in point: the cruelly named Democratic […]

Here a Nuke, There a Nuke, Everywhere a Nuke Nuke

Settlement Increases Pressure to Open Yucca; Kerry Opposes Facility Pressure is rising around the issue of what to do with nuclear waste in the U.S. In the 1980s, the feds signed agreements with several power companies, promising to take nuclear waste off their hands starting in 1998. The plan was to put it all in […]

So Lawn, Farewell

The Earth Hates Your Lawn We’re sorry to keep harping on this, but: the lawns, people, the lawns. Quit with the lawns! There are 30 million acres of green lawn in the U.S. Some 54 million people mow their lawns each week in the summer, using 800 million gallons of gas a year. More than […]