Latest Articles

You Can Ring Myron Ebell, Ebell, Ebell

White House Tries to Undermine Government Research on Climate Change The Bush White House seems to have teamed up with a conservative think tank, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, to undermine the credibility of government scientists doing research on climate change. Myron Ebell, a director of CEI, which has received more than $1 million in funding […]

The Endesa Nigh

Indigenous Activists Give Up Fight Over Chilean Dam After a six-year protest, four elderly Pehuenche women have agreed to end their opposition to a $570 million hydroelectric dam to be built on their ancestral land in Southern Chile. After lengthy negotiations with the Chilean government and Endesa, the Spanish-owned power company building the dam, the […]

Sour Home Alabama

Budget Cuts Could Mean Lax Enforcement at Alabama’s Landfills Proposed budget cuts to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management could spell the end of virtually all landfill and medical-waste facility inspections, state officials say. The state plans to cut $1.3 million of the $5 million it normally contributes to the department’s budget; the remainder of […]

Sake It to ’em

Tokyo High Court Hears Long-Running Pollution Case In the latest development in a seven-year court case, the Tokyo High Court yesterday began hearing a lawsuit that accuses the Japanese government, the Tokyo metropolitan government, the Metropolitan Expressway Public Corporation, and several diesel-vehicle manufacturers of endangering the health of the city’s citizens by failing to stem […]

City of Light Traffic

Paris, Edinburgh Contemplate London-Style Traffic Fees Thousands of miles from Tokyo, France and Scotland are trying to figure out what to do about their own traffic-induced pollution problems. The French government is considering instituting a toll for vehicles entering Paris, which is suffering from severe pollution as a result of heavy traffic combined with consistently […]

Fish and Foul

PCB-Laced Salmon Pollute Alaskan Lakes Pollution is turning up in some of Alaska’s remotest and most pristine lakes, and the problem isn’t secret shore-side industries — it’s salmon. According to research published in this week’s edition of Nature, sockeye salmon pick up PCBs in the northern Pacific Ocean, then head to Alaska to spawn and […]

The real dimensions of $87 billion

Add enough zeros to the end of any number — say, 87 — and it quickly becomes an abstraction. I can imagine 87 years (my grandmother’s age), or 87 miles (about the distance from my home in Brooklyn to outer Long Island), or $87 (which wouldn’t go far out there in the hoity-toity Hamptons). But […]

Squeaky Green

Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products Make Inroads into the Mainstream It’s hard to get excited about housecleaning, but Monica Nassif has found a way. In fact, as the president of two separate companies that manufacture eco-friendly cleaning products, Nassif was one of the most enthusiastic participants in the 19th annual Natural Products Expo East, held this month […]

Taking Leaves of Our Senses

U.S. Cities Lose 20 Percent of Trees Urban sprawl and highway construction have gobbled up greenery at a startling rate, leaving U.S. cities with 20 percent fewer trees than they had just 10 years ago, according to the environmental group American Forests. In a study released as part of the annual National Urban Forest conference, […]

Durban Renewal

World Parks Congress Closes with Signing of Durban Accord The 10-day World Parks Congress closed yesterday in Durban, South Africa, with the signing of the eponymous Durban Accord. The accord is not legally binding for its 154 signatories, but it is still considered a tool to “promote, guide, and influence positive action for protected areas […]