Latest Articles
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Sticking Out Their Tongass
It’s a big bummer, but not a big surprise: The Bush administration ruled on Friday that it will not provide wilderness protection for any additional land in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, a move that will open up hundreds of thousands of acres of old-growth forest to logging. Public opinion was overwhelmingly in favor of creating […]
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Mass Appeal
Massachusetts may get its first national forest if a plan being drawn up by the administration of Gov. Mitt Romney (R) comes to fruition. The plan’s still in the preliminary stages — so preliminary, in fact, that no maps have yet been sketched — but a considerable chunk of northwestern Massachusetts could be affected, including […]
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Out to Luntz
Worried that their party is vulnerable on environmental issues, some Republicans in recent months have been trying to foster a gentler, greener image. An influential memorandum penned last fall by GOP strategist Frank Luntz advises Republicans to sprinkle terms like “balance” and “common sense” into their environmental speeches, and to stick to the word “conservationist,” […]
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N.C. Pee Dee Blues
Water wars have long simmered in the arid Western U.S., but now they’re bubbling up in Eastern states as well. Dry spells in 1999 and 2002 brought many of the East’s rivers to worrisome lows; increased water demand spurred by new development is only adding to the problem. A contentious quarrel between Maryland and Virginia […]
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The Motherboard of Invention
As Grist reported Monday, discarded electronic equipment poses a serious environmental and health hazard in the developing world, where obsolete computers and other products are stripped and recycled. Now, we have some good news to add; 16 electronics recyclers in the U.S. and Canada have committed to keeping monitors, cables, and motherboards out of the […]
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New Sours Review
Opposition to the Bush administration’s efforts to weaken the Clean Air Act is growing, with California, Wisconsin, and Illinois yesterday joining 10 Northeastern states in filing lawsuits against the U.S. EPA. At issue is a decision to weaken the act’s New Source Review rules, which historically have prohibited aged power plants from upgrading their facilities […]
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New King Coal
Coal has a reputation as the dirtiest fuel around, but the U.S. Department of Energy hopes to reinvent the stuff as clean energy by building an experimental, coal-fired, emissions-free power plant. The project, known as FutureGen, will be built within 10 years and will cost just 10 percent more than an ordinary coal plant to […]
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He Kamen Through the Bathroom Window
Dean Kamen, inventor of the much-ballyhooed Segway Human Transporter, has come up with a new innovation: a portable water purifier he says can help mitigate the lack of clean, freshwater sources in impoverished parts of the world. Kamen unveiled a prototype of his creation at the annual cutting-edge “Technology, Entertainment, Design” conference, being held this […]
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Umbra on wood floors and solid waste
Oh Wise Umbra, We’ll be replacing our carpeting with wood flooring, probably from one of the major home stores (Home Depot or Lowe’s). Are wood floors a really bad environmental choice if they are made from unsustainably harvested wood? Would I be better off going with a (probably petroleum-based) fake wood floor? Also, is there […]
