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Dollars Without Sense

Privatizing Forest Service Jobs Would Cost More, Study Finds A Bush administration plan to privatize hundreds of U.S. Forest Service jobs, from wildlife biologists to safety officers, would cost taxpayers more than continuing to pay federal employees, a new agency study has found. Under the Bush plan, as many as one-fourth of all 40,000 USFS […]

Can’t Get a Piece of the Rock

British Insurance Companies Would Not Cover Farmers Growing GM Crops The general public in the U.K. is deeply opposed to genetically modified crops, and now British farmers have yet another reason not to grow them: No one will insure them. A study by the agricultural organization Farm found that none of Britain’s five major insurance […]

Nuclear Holler Costs

Nuclear Weapons Facilities Vulnerable to Terrorists, Whistleblower Says Nuclear weapons facilities in the United States are vulnerable to terrorist attacks, according to a whistleblower who recounts his tale to reporter (and Grist contributor) Mark Hertsgaard in the November issue of Vanity Fair. Until September 2001, federal employee Rich Levernier was in charge of coordinating simulated […]

Otter This World

Working to develop the Volkswagen of solar homes

Just off I-75 in Tennessee, halfway between Knoxville and Chattanooga, past a Home Depot, a Ford dealership, a Krispy Kreme, and a Piggly Wiggly supermarket, there is a newly developed tract of low-income homes built by volunteers of Habitat for Humanity. A bright idea: the Indrajaya-Kinandjar solar house. At first glance, nothing about the development […]

Live MTBE-Free or Die

New Hampshire Sues 22 Oil Companies Over MTBE Pollution In a first-of-its-kind move by a state, New Hampshire filed suit against 22 oil companies yesterday, blaming them for contaminating drinking water with the fuel additive MTBE. The companies added the chemical to their gasoline to make it burn more cleanly, but it has leached into […]

Get on the Clean Bus, Gus

Washington State Cleans Up Its School Buses Washington state has launched an ambitious program to retrofit its diesel school buses with devices that curb pollution. Throughout the country, public health advocates and parents alike have grown concerned about school buses’ dirty emissions, which can contribute to a range of health problems, particularly in children, whose […]

A Monumental Decision

Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Challenge to National Monuments The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a pillar of former President Clinton’s environmental legacy yesterday when it refused to hear challenges to the creation of seven national monuments in five Western states. The Mountain States Legal Foundation, a conservative law firm, argued that Clinton overstepped the bounds […]

Salmon Chanted Evening

Historic Deal Will Help Atlantic Salmon in Maine In an unprecedented move intended to save plummeting populations of threatened Atlantic salmon, a coalition of environmental groups, government agencies, a Native American tribe, and a power company yesterday announced a plan to take down dams along the Penobscot River, Maine’s longest waterway. The project calls for […]

Clark Williams-Derry, Northwest Environment Watch

Clark Williams-Derry is research director at Northwest Environment Watch, a nonprofit research and communication center that promotes sustainability in the Pacific Northwest. Monday, 6 Oct 2003 SEATTLE, Wash. I am in a completely foul mood. What on God’s so-far-still-green earth was I thinking when I agreed to do this stupid diary? Oh, that’s right, here’s […]