Latest Articles

My Big Fat Greek Olympics

Enviros Say Athens Olympics Will Fall Short of Green Mark The Olympic Games in Athens this summer will be anything but green, says a new report released by the World Wildlife Fund. The U.N. Environment Program has also chastised Greek officials for failing to meet a number of environmental pledges they made when bidding for […]

A Real Downer Cow

An urban advocate answers questions

With what environmental organization are you affiliated? I’m executive director of Urban Ecology, Inc. What does your organization do? The five-second elevator speech goes like this: “We offer pro-bono land-use planning and policy advocacy to help transform struggling, low-income neighborhoods into vibrant, healthy communities.” The longer explanation goes like this (and after you read this, […]

Umbra on strategic voting and writing to legislators

Dear Umbra, I’m a dislocated Texas resident living in Georgia, and I frequently send action emails to congressional leaders on environmental issues. Which leaders should I be sending my emails to: those I vote for in Texas or the Georgia ones? I’m afraid that when I email the Texas leaders they’ll see my present Georgia […]

War in the Time of Cholera

Baghdad Residents Suffer from Polluted Water As if the chaos and violence weren’t enough to bear, millions of Baghdad residents also lack a reliable source of clean water. Some have no choice but to get supplies straight from the Tigris River, which is teeming with raw sewage, pesticides, oil, heavy metals, and, thanks to the […]

To the Manner Bjorn

Lomborg Meeting Downplays Importance of Climate Change Bjorn Lomborg is vexing enviros once again. The Danish contrarian — who generated heaps of controversy a few years ago with his book The Skeptical Environmentalist, which argued that many environmental concerns are overblown — is back in the headlines, this time for organizing a workshop of eight […]

Bonn Vivant

China Pledges to Get 10 Percent of Power from Renewables by 2010 China pleasantly surprised enviros and politicians alike on Friday with a vow that it will generate 10 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2010. “This commitment was amazing,” said Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, German minister for economic cooperation and development, at an international […]

Reading This Blurb Is Killing You

Researchers Find Toxic Dust on Computers Dust on the computer in front of you right now contains toxic chemicals that can lead to long-term neurological and reproductive health problems, according to a new study. So really, you should stop reading this, back away from the keyboard, and go take a walk. But for you masochists, […]

I Just Met a Girl Named Maria

Senate Backs Redefinition of Nuke Waste The Senate voted narrowly yesterday to allow the Department of Energy to reclassify some high-level nuclear waste as “low-level” and leave it in place (albeit covered in concrete) rather than transport it to Nevada to be buried deep underground. The reclassification, contained in a provision inserted by Sen. Lindsey […]

Film plot rings true as NOAA runs up against White House

The brewing storm. Image: NOAA. Even after grapefruit-sized hail and monster tornadoes assault major cities in the Northern Hemisphere in the film The Day After Tomorrow, Jack Hall, a paleoclimatologist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, still can’t get the ballooning crisis of global warming through the thick skull of the vice president. “I […]