Latest Articles

Water Foul

Bush Administration Proposes Lower Standards for Toxic Metal Selenium Even while the Bush administration publicly courts hunters and fishers, it’s taking quiet steps that those outdoorsfolks likely wouldn’t approve of. Over the objections of many federal scientists, the U.S. EPA is poised to establish a more lax standard for selenium, a toxic metal that builds […]

Smells Like Ship

Concern Rises Over Air Pollution from Ships Tough regulations and technological advances have made power plants, cars, and other common sources of air pollution cleaner over past decades, and as they get cleaner another common source comes into sharper relief: ships. In some port cities like Los Angeles, ships — including oil tankers, container ships, […]

Limp Biscuit

Judge Lifts Injunctions on Biscuit Salvage Logging The legal battle over logging at the site of 2002’s devastating Biscuit wildfire in southwestern Oregon continues. A federal judge has lifted the temporary injunctions that barred the U.S. Forest Service from logging in the forest, rejecting an appeal from Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. The group […]

A Breed Apart

Plant Breeders Look to the Past for Seeds Suited to Organic Growing In the post-WWII era, as farmers leaned increasingly on monocultures drenched in pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, seed breeders began developing genetic strains suited to those conditions. Funded by industry research money, they bred seeds designed to flourish in artificially controlled surroundings with heavy […]

David Epstein sends dispatches from the Republican National Convention

David Epstein lives in New York and works as an intern for the New York Daily News. Tuesday, 31 Aug 2004 NEW YORK, N.Y. Inside Madison Square Garden, the Republican National Convention has barely gotten underway. But out in the streets, the climate has been steadily warming. Not that climate change, or for that matter […]

Sultans of Swing

Environmental Issues May Matter After All, Via Swing States Conventional wisdom has it that environmental issues are low priorities for most voters, and thus for most presidential campaigns. However, this year’s squeaker of a presidential election will be decided by voters in a small handful of swing states — and in many of those states, […]

Kim Jong Illin’

North Korea’s Environment Is in Sorry Shape Its rivers and streams are filled with industrial waste, its air is polluted, and its landscape is increasingly devoid of trees. Can’t tell what country we’re talking about? It’s North Korea. The first large-scale environmental assessment of the country, conducted by dozens of government and academic researchers under […]

Yes, We Have Mo’ Bananas

Australians Kick Some Renewable-Energy Butt Those Australians are busy bees these days! One team of Aussie researchers has announced that within seven years it will be able to produce hydrogen fuel from sunlight and water, in a process that has no moving parts and produces no pollutants. “This is potentially huge, with a market the […]

By Any Greens Necessary

Enviro Justice Center Works to Link Green and Civil-Rights Movements Environmental degradation often falls hardest on poor and minority communities, but these communities can have difficulty organizing to fight for environmental justice, and they’ve received too little help from a mainstream environmental movement perceived as a white, middle- and upper-class affair. Sociology professor Robert Bullard […]

Umbra on organic syrup

Dear Umbra, I saw at the store there is “organic” maple syrup. Is there really a difference between organic and non-organic maple syrup? Do conventional farms spray the trees with massive amounts of pesticides? I don’t have much money (poor college student) so I was just trying to buy organic for things like apples and […]