Latest Articles

Sleep With the Fishes

At least 20,000 chinook salmon and other fish have died in Northern California’s Klamath River in the last two weeks, but federal officials are unwilling to attribute the deaths to the Bush administration’s decision to divert water away from the river this year and into an irrigation project in southern Oregon. U.S. Fish and Wildlife […]

Homeland Insecurity

Despite all the hype about guaranteeing “homeland security,” the Bush administration has scrapped plans to impose strict regulations to protect chemical plants from possible terrorist attacks. The decision, which was confirmed yesterday by U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman, came after months of administration infighting and heavy lobbying efforts against new rules by the chemical industry. […]

You Can Judge a Food By Its Label

In a big step for the organic food industry, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is poised to roll out an official “USDA Organic” seal and launch a long-awaited national standard to replace the existing hodgepodge of state and private certification systems. Food will have to contain 95 percent organic ingredients to be eligible for the […]

Gulf War Syndrome

Environmental damage in Kuwait stemming from Gulf War activities was far more severe than originally thought, according to a U.N.-financed study whose preliminary results were released yesterday. The study found that pollution from torched oil wells not only filled into the sky, but also seeped into the ground; further, the salt from seawater used to […]

Talk Amongst Yourselves

You have passionate feelings about sea turtles and are dying to discuss the above-mentioned article with someone — but your coworkers (or spouse or parents or children) think you’re utterly insane and would rather talk about the Diamondbacks. What’s a loquacious environmentalist to do? Announcing The Gristmill, Grist Magazine’s brand-spankin’-new discussion forum, where you can […]

My Big Fat Greek Survey

Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou now knows what we’ve known all along: An online poll conducted for a private foundation he chairs found that there’s no better place for environmental news than on the Internet. The poll on the environment, involving more than 25,000 respondents in 175 countries, was launched at last month’s World Summit […]

A Fungus Among Us

There’s no time for snails and ‘shrooms — that was the gist of an announcement Monday by the Bush administration, which is seeking to ease environmental regulations governing logging on federal land in the Pacific Northwest. The timber industry and administration officials complain that the “survey and manage” component of the regulations, which mandates detailed […]

Canal One

Can the Panama Canal, a relic of the Industrial Revolution, survive in the modern era? That is the question that is haunting Panama, which depends on the canal’s revenue-generating power to help ensure economic stability. As ships grow ever larger, fewer of them are able to squeeze through the narrow canal, despite a $1 billion […]

What in the Sand Hill?

High on the list of Very Remote Places on Earth are the Great Sand Hills, a 730-square-mile stretch of sage brush and dunes in southwestern Saskatchewan, Canada. There is one road in the region, and precious little traffic on it. The main residents are mule deer, coyotes, burrowing owls, and the endangered Ferruginous hawk. But […]

Running Knows

Climate change is caused by human activities — and maybe by more of them than previously thought. That was the conclusion of a report released today by NASA, which found that land-use changes such as farming, irrigation, and urban sprawl contribute as much if not more to climate change than does the burning of fossil […]