Latest Articles
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Does it make sense for environmentalists to want to limit immigration?
The Sierra Club, most venerable of environmental organizations, is awash in charges, countercharges, suits, countersuits, invective, counter-invective, and double counter-invective bounces-off-me-and-sticks-to-you. At issue, depending on whom you talk to, is whether single-issue racists will take over the organization’s board or whether club democracy will be squelched by blatant interference from the group’s old guard. What’s […]
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Dispatches from a macaw research trip
Sue Kaufman, a 20-year veteran of the business world, volunteers with several environmental organizations. She is soon to join Grist‘s board of directors. Here she chronicles her volunteer activities on a recent expedition with Earthwatch Institute to the Peruvian Amazon.. Monday, 1 Mar 2004 LIMA, Peru Greetings from Lima, Peru, where I am spending the […]
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Huge Tracts of Land
Bush Administration Accelerates Oil and Gas Leasing in Rockies The Bush administration, as part of its broader effort to accelerate oil and gas development on the Rocky Mountain front, is moving ahead with plans to lease large tracts of environmentally sensitive land in Utah and southwestern Wyoming. This has prompted protests from varied quarters, including […]
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Missouri Loves Company
New Missouri River Management Plan Sparks Protest A massive new plan to manage the Missouri River, released by the Army Corps of Engineers on Friday, managed to please exactly nobody, in keeping with the tenor of 15 years of debate over the future of the “Big Muddy.” Conservation groups immediately protested and filed lawsuits, saying […]
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Breaking Wind
U.K. Military Accused of Thwarting Wind-Power Development The U.K. Ministry of Defense is blocking efforts to expand wind energy in the country, said a group of top scientists today. The MoD objected to 48 percent of applications to build land-based wind turbine farms in 2003 because it doesn’t want turbines within 46 miles of air […]
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A veteran enviro leader answers questions
What organization are you affiliated with? What does it do? I’m the dean at the Yale University School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. The school is working to become “a truly global school of the environment.” We have around 235 students in our professional master’s degree programs in environmental management, forestry, and environmental science. Our […]
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Burn Me Up, Scotty
Super-Hot Trash Zapper May Yield Hydrogen This just in: The future is now. “Plasma torch technology” is gaining acceptance among corporations and governments, and may soon show up at a waste facility near you. Here’s how it works: Trash — anything from municipal garbage to toxic waste to PCBs — is zapped (at least we […]
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I’ve Seen Fire and I’ve Seen Rain
Amazonian Fires May Screw Up Entire South American Climate Massive fires in Amazonian forests, set by impoverished local residents trying to create revenue-generating pastures and cropland, have the potential to disrupt the climate and generate fierce storms across South America, says research published in today’s issue of the journal Science. The fires send particles into […]
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Shareholding Industry Responsible
Shareholders Call on Companies to Address Global Warming A group of pension-fund managers representing public employees announced yesterday that they had filed shareholder resolutions with 10 North American oil and gas companies, calling on them to report to investors how they plan to deal with the problem of global warming and, more to the point, […]
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Look for the GM Label
Battle Over Genetically Modified Foods Rages On It’s been an action-packed couple of weeks in the ongoing global dispute over genetically engineered foods. Just today, a conference of 80 nations agreed on a strict set of labeling rules for international commodity shipments of GM foods — rules which will form the basis of the biodiversity-protecting […]