Latest Articles

A Spoonful of Sugar Makes the Sustainability Go Down

The United Nations isn’t generally thought of as a marketing entity — but a little marketing savvy is just what’s needed to encourage sustainable consumption habits worldwide, according to the U.N. Environment Programme. Right now, the organization says, only 5 percent of people in developed countries maintain sustainable lifestyles, defined as “enjoying a good quality […]

Solar, Without Flair

President Bush’s proposed budget for the government’s 2004 fiscal year doesn’t contain much good news for renewable energy advocates: Total research funding for the Energy Department’s energy efficiency and renewable energy programs would increase just 0.1 percent. Last summer, though, the feds apparently had enough money to purchase a solar-energy system to heat the presidential […]

First Down

The parent company of a power plant in eastern Ohio has become the first of 36 energy utilities to be tried for causing smog and health problems in the Northeast. In a lawsuit that began yesterday, the U.S. Justice Department accused FirstEnergy Corporation of significantly upgrading its W.H. Sammis plant without installing new pollution controls, […]

Beam Me Up

The U.S. food industry is increasingly turning to irradiation to kill deadly bacteria such as E. coli and listeria in meat — a move environmentalists, food-safety advocates, and others say could amount to leaping from the frying pan into the fire. Irradiation uses high-energy electrons, gamma rays, or X-rays to kill bacteria. Critics say the […]

Quicksilver, Slow Kids

World leaders urgently need to take action to cut down on mercury emissions to protect human health, according to a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme. Mercury is released into the atmosphere naturally from rocks, soils, and volcanic eruptions, but mercury emissions have dramatically increased from pre-industrial levels due to human activity. Seventy […]

Carolyn Raffensperger, Science and Environmental Health Network

Carolyn Raffensperger is executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, based in Ames, Iowa, which advocates the wise application of science to efforts to protect the environment and public health. Monday, 3 Feb 2003 AMES, Iowa Like most of you, my weekend was full of the Columbia shuttle disaster. It raised questions central […]

Catalog of Thrills

Don’t Cry, Wolf

The gray wolf, once nearly wiped out in the Lower 48 states, is flourishing in the northern Rocky Mountains thanks to a federal recovery effort that got underway in 1995 with the reintroduction of 14 Canadian wolves into Yellowstone National Park. Now there are nearly 700 wolves in 41 packs in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, […]

Refuge-nix

Six GOP senators are throwing a wrench in the Bush administration’s plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling. The six — Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, John McCain of Arizona, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois, and Mike DeWine of Ohio — announced last […]

Bill Clinton Gathers No Moss

Former President Bill Clinton will take to the stage with the Rolling Stones this Thursday at an L.A. concert aimed at raising awareness about the looming problem of climate change. Clinton won’t be playing the sax, but he will be blowing his metaphorical horn in a speech about the need to tackle global warming, says […]