Latest Articles

Sites for Sore Eyes

High-priority toxic waste clean-ups at seven sites in the U.S. will be left incomplete this year due to Superfund shortages, according to a report by the U.S. EPA’s inspector general. The sites include two former wood-treatment facilities in Texas that are leaching chemicals into nearby water supplies, an abandoned copper mine in Vermont polluting a […]

Students compete to build the house of the future

At midnight one late-September evening, a convoy of 18-wheeler flatbed trucks carting 14 houses (some whole, some in parts) and thousands of square feet of solar panels rolled past the Washington Monument, drove along the National Mall, and headed up to the front lawn of the Capitol building. Upon arriving, the first truck in line […]

Delhi Pickle

India, the nation that is hosting the eighth in a series of U.N. meetings on climate change, is using the occasion to chastise industrialized nations for pressuring poor countries to cut greenhouse emissions. Speaking at the meeting in Delhi, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee argued that emissions-reduction programs would undermine efforts by India and other […]

Not With a Bang but a Whimper

The Bush administration’s plan to open federal lands in the western U.S. to oil and gas drilling would produce a measly amount of energy and a massive amount of environmental destruction, according to a Wilderness Society report released yesterday. The proposed drilling areas, which are scattered throughout millions of acres in six Rocky Mountain states […]

Half-baked Alaska

Anti-environmentalism in Alaska is at a fever pitch, and it’s affecting the shape of nearly every political campaign in the final weeks before voters go to the polls. Incumbent state Rep. Harry Crawford (D), for example, has gone out of his way to try to convince his constituency that he’s pro-development, not eco-friendly. “I believe […]

Taps

Contaminants found in the tap water in California’s largest cities could pose risks to children, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems, according to a new study from the Natural Resources Defense Council. The findings in the report, “What’s on Tap,” were the result of a review of tap-water data from 19 cities in […]

Arkansas of the Covenant

Arkansas is poised to consider an innovative plan to create an “alternative fuels” tax on electricity and gas users in the state. Under the plan, which state Rep. Herschel Cleveland (D) said yesterday that he would introduce to the state assembly early next year, residents would be charged a 25-cent tax on each of their […]

Don’t Dig a Hole, Too, China

In yet another blow to the environment, the Chinese government is launching a massive expansion of its road network to accommodate its fast-emerging car culture. By 2010, the country says major roads will span a total of 22,000 miles in and between major cities, including Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai; by 2020, it hopes to […]

Whistle While You Work

In a new twist to the Klamath River controversy, Michael Kelly, a biologist with the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, is blowing the whistle on the Bush administration for drafting and approving a water plan that he says provides inadequate protections for endangered salmon. The accusations come after the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation rejected water-flow […]

Yukon Take Your SUV and Shove It

Despite increasing awareness of alternative-fuel technologies and growing concern over U.S. dependence on foreign oil, the fuel economy of American cars is only getting worse. Statistics released today by the U.S. EPA show that the average fuel economy of the new fleet of cars for 2003 is 6 percent lower than it was 15 years […]