Latest Articles

Best Western

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has become a household name, but who’s ever heard of the Western Arctic Reserve? Lots of folks will over the coming months if the Campaign for America’s Wilderness gets its way. The Washington, D.C.-based group is trying to pin a new name onto the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska as part of […]

A Lulu for Lula

Brazilian enviros are up in arms over a federal move last week that will allow genetically modified (GM) soybeans to be sold in the country temporarily, through January 2004. GM crops are officially banned in Brazil, but so many farmers flout the prohibition that an estimated 12 percent of the nation’s soy crop is genetically […]

I Could Have Had a C8

Nothing sticks to Teflon, they say — but a key ingredient in Teflon could be sticking to you. A chemical manufactured by Dupont and used to make Teflon and other products may pose health risks for women of childbearing age and young girls, according to an internal U.S. EPA document. The chemical, ammonium perfluorooctanoate, known […]

Paint Misbehavin’

Vexed by barnacles, algae, and other wee hitchhikers that attach themselves to the hulls of ships, the maritime industry has been fighting back with a paint that keeps hulls clean for one to five years by slowly releasing biocides that kill off unwanted organisms. Problem is, the critter-killing paint additives don’t stay put — they […]

Flexing Their Mussels

Roughly 1,000 miles of rivers and streams in Alabama could be protected as critical habitat for endangered species, under a new proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The proposal, which is designed to protect eight endangered and three threatened species of mussels, was great news for environmentalists and bad news for backers of […]

Older Europe

Population growth in Europe is slowing down — so much so that the absolute number of people on the continent could begin to decline in the near future, according to an article published in the current issue of the journal Science. The report authors say the turning point came in 2000, when the number of […]

Someone Set Up Us the Bomb

U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman announced this week that she is “very comfortable” with the Pentagon’s proposals to exempt the military from a broad swath of environmental regulations. In response to the war in Iraq, the Defense Department has stepped up its longstanding efforts to obtain military waivers for rules ranging from endangered species protections […]

No Exit

A plan by the California Public Utilities Commission to levy an “exit fee” against anyone who stops drawing electricity from the state’s grid — read: alternative energy users — has come under fire by lawmakers, renewable energy producers, and consumers. The proposed exit fee is a holdover from the state’s 2000-2001 energy crisis, when the […]

Hawkeyes on the Prize

Iowa will soon be home to the world’s largest land-based wind farm if MidAmerican Energy Company has its way. The power company plans to erect between 180 and 200 turbines capable of generating 310 megawatts of electricity and powering some 85,000 homes. If approved by the Iowa Public Utilities Board and state lawmakers, the $323 […]

Umbra on garbage disposals

Dear Umbra: When my garbage disposal died recently, I replaced it with a clever new design that uses no electricity (just water pressure), but it led me to wonder which is really kinder to the environment: putting kitchen waste in the disposal or just trashing it? I compost whenever possible, of course, but there are […]