Latest Articles

Throwing It in Reverse

Ford Motor Company backpedaled yesterday on its promise to increase the fuel economy of sport utility vehicles 25 percent by 2020. It now says it will continue to try to improve gas mileage but will not set a fixed deadline for reaching the 25-percent goal. The company chalked up the change in plan to technological […]

Pedro Arrojo-Agudo has started a new water culture in the Old World

Economics professor Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, who teaches at the University of Zaragoza in Spain, is using his academic expertise to battle a monster: the National Hydrological Plan, a $25 billion project that would build 120 dams on the Ebro River. The dams would submerge entire towns along Spain’s second-longest river, displace tens of thousands of rice […]

Public Employees Should Be Seen and Not Heard

Speaking truth to power has its price — just ask Dave Moody and Bob Jackson. Moody, one of Wyoming’s leading predator biologists and an employee of the state Department of Game and Fish since 1976, was suspended from his job last week after publicly expressing doubts that the state’s proposed wolf management plan would ensure […]

Lead Story

Lead levels that are currently assumed to be safe for children can significantly impair intellectual development, according to a groundbreaking report published in today’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The current U.S. and international allowable blood lead level is 10 micrograms per deciliter, but researchers found that lead levels lower than that […]

Give a Hoot

Pollution in North America decreased by 5 percent between 1995 and 2000, according to a report released today by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, established under the North American Free Trade Agreement. In 2000, the U.S., Canada, and Mexico released 3.6 million tons of pollution. Of that, 1.5 million tons went directly into the air, […]

Orange Alert

The U.S. military sprayed twice as much herbicide on Vietnam during the war there than previously estimated, according to a study published today in the journal Nature. Relying on previously unexamined military documents and new assessments of dioxin concentrations, the study found that an additional 1.8 million gallons of toxic herbicides, mostly Agent Orange, were […]

An Aboriginal elder battles construction of a radioactive-waste dump in Australia

In the 1950s and ’60s, the British military conducted a dozen full-scale nuclear tests in the desert of southern Australia. To the military, the region was a wasteland, the best possible place for such a project; to the Aboriginal people who had lived in the desert for millennia, the land was their home. Eileen Kampakuta […]

Can’t See the Trees, Either

Spring is here, and all across the country, the first pale green leaves are appearing on trees. But if you live in an urban area, you may be lucky to see such a sight: During the past 15 years, the quantity of trees in many U.S. cities has dropped by almost a third, while paved […]

The Progress of Engines

Bulldozers, tractors, irrigation equipment, and other diesel-powered off-road machines will be subject to stricter emissions standards under a new plan announced yesterday by the U.S. EPA. The plan calls for cutting emissions by up to 95 percent, a move that would bring the standards for off-road vehicles in line with those for cars and trucks […]

Ever Glad-handing

The federal government is footing half the $8.4 billion bill for restoring the Florida Everglades — so no wonder eight U.S. lawmakers are expressing concern over what they see as the state’s efforts to alter the Everglades Forever Act, which sets the terms of the cleanup. Florida Department of Environmental Protection chief David Struhs is […]