Latest Articles

Have a Cow, Man

The state of South Dakota is leading the nation in the Partners for Fish and Wildlife project, a federal conservation program designed to help farmers and ranchers reduce their negative impact on native prairie ecosystems. Conversion of wild grasslands to croplands is a major environmental problem in South Dakota and other prairies states. Under the […]

For Never Wild

A coalition of environmentalists has sued the U.S. Department of the Interior over its recent decision to prevent the Bureau of Land Management from considering any more Western land for wilderness designation. Areas set aside for protection under the 1964 Wilderness Act are protected from motorized recreation and most forms of development. In 1996, however, […]

How to marry your sweetheart and love the planet

When high-school sweethearts Alicia Gomer and Mark Wittink got engaged in December 2001, they pledged that their wedding would reflect their commitment to ecological issues. Gomer, who is working on an M.S. in environmental science policy, and Wittink, a project director at the Resource Conservation Alliance in Washington, D.C., were “shocked at the lack of […]

Respect Your Elders

U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman announced yesterday that the Bush administration put the “citizen” back in “senior citizen” by ending its practice of devaluing the lives of older people when calculating the costs and benefits of environmental regulations. Nicknamed the “senior discount,” the highly controversial computational method involved valuing the lives of those older than […]

Fuel Independent Candidate

Jockeying for name recognition and post position, the candidates for the 2004 Democratic primary are busily trying to stake out the issues that will define them as the election unfolds — and Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman has settled on energy independence. In his first major policy speech, given yesterday to environmentalists, Lieberman declared a goal […]

Smoked Salmon Plan

The Bush administration will have to rethink its salmon-management plan in the Columbia River Basin, following a federal court ruling yesterday that found the current plan inadequate to protect the endangered species and reduce the negative impact of hydroelectric dams. The ruling marks a major triumph for environmentalists and a serious blow to the White […]

No Cruise Control

Within 24 hours of Friday’s start of the 2003 cruise season, a ship owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines dumped more than 40 tons of raw sewage into the waters off the coast of Washington state. It’s unclear whether the discharge from the Norwegian Sun was illegal, but the cruise line acknowledged that it violated company […]

Things That Make You Go Hummer

Yesterday, Grist reported that the average fuel efficiency of U.S. vehicles is at a 22-year low. Today, we’re happy to report that at least people are upset about it. A survey of complaints about new vehicles, released yesterday by J. D. Powers and Associates, found that fuel consumption was the second-most-common complaint among all respondents. […]

Let’s Get Chemical

In a trailblazing effort to mitigate the dangerous effects of toxic substances on human and environmental health, the European Commission has proposed strict new standards for chemical production. Currently, those chemicals that were in use before the E.U. was established in 1981 are not subject to the same registration and testing standards as new substances. […]

The Secondhand Ticks Us Off

The dangers of secondhand smoke are well documented — but what about secondhand pesticide? A new report by the same name contends that pesticides and herbicides drifting off of agricultural lands endanger the health of hundreds of thousands of Californians. The report, issued today by Pesticide Action Network North America, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, […]