Latest Articles
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The Wrath of Grapes
Ban on Biotech Crops Makes the Ballot in a California County Voters in Northern California’s Mendocino County will be the first in the nation with a chance to rebuff growers of genetically modified (GM) crops. Local anti-biotechnology activists gathered enough signatures to secure a spot on the March ballot for an initiative that would ban […]
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Kathryn Schulz reviews Monster of God by David Quammen
What this world needs," opined the nature writer David Quammen in a 1984 column for Outside magazine, "is a good vicious 60-foot-long Amazon snake." He was kidding, thankfully; the rest of the column goes on to describe the human tendency to massively exaggerate the size of anacondas in the Amazon. Now, though, 19 years later, Quammen has written Monster of God, a book arguing that precisely what the world does need is very large, very predatory animals.
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Next Thing You Know, They’ll Have a Better Human-Rights Record Than the U.S., Too
China to Adopt Fuel-Economy Standards Stricter Than Those in U.S. Intent on reducing its growing dependence on foreign oil, China is set to impose vehicle fuel-economy standards that will be markedly stricter than those in place in the U.S. The rules, expected to go into effect in 2005 and become more stringent in 2008, will […]
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A Low-level Blow
Bush Plans to Loosen Rules for Radwaste Disposal Radioactive waste may be coming soon to a dump near you, brought to you by — you guessed it — the Bush administration. The U.S. EPA is proposing a significant rule change that would let the nuclear industry dispose of low-level radwaste at commonplace dumps and hazardous […]
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Kill Bill!
Final Version of Energy Bill Is Bad News for the Environment After many weeks of pork-barrel politics conducted behind closed doors, Republican negotiators yesterday released a final version of the first big energy bill to emerge from Congress in more than a decade — and it’s a doozy. The package, which contains loads of subsidies […]
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Empty Suits
MTBE Producers Would Get Relief from Lawsuits Under Energy Bill Of all the anti-environmental provisions in the energy bill, the one raising perhaps the most ire would limit the liability of companies that produce the fuel additive MTBE, which has been found to contaminate water supplies across the country. Not only would the measure shield […]
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Umbra on microwaves
Dear Umbra, We recently bought a new (to us) house and acquired a microwave oven. Having gotten this far in life without one, we figured we wouldn’t use it all that much. Ha. We use it all the time. It’s just so much faster than heating things on the stove. I do wonder, though, which […]
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Umbra on supermarket coolers
Dear Umbra, Every time I go to the grocery store and see meats, dairy products, and other products displayed in open-air refrigerators, I get a little miffed and wonder if this isn’t a huge waste of energy and a tremendous cost to the supermarket as well. Do supermarkets make more money having their products in […]
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David Waskow, Friends of the Earth
David Waskow is an international policy analyst at Friends of the Earth U.S., where he works on trade policy, corporate accountability, and the environment. Monday, 17 Nov 2003 MIAMI, Fla. It may as well be called the World Trade Summit Beach Tour: next stop, Miami. The last stop was in Cancun, Mexico, in September, where […]
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Umbra on eco-friendly fish consumption
Dear Umbra, I recently turned 40 and have decided I need to pay more attention to what I eat on a daily basis. My diet has never been horrible, and I’ve always believed in all things in moderation, but a persistently elevated cholesterol level and my mortality now a smudge on the horizon have helped […]
