Latest Articles
-
Rock Me Like a Hurricane
The healing of the Florida Everglades is the largest environmental restoration project in U.S. history — and its got some of the nation’s highest hopes pinned on it. Some of those hopes involve the Florida Bay, a once-pristine angler’s paradise that all but collapsed in the late 1980s, when its clear waters became clouded and […]
-
Choosy Administrations Choose GEF
The U.S. and 31 other countries pledged this week to allocate a total of $2.92 billion over four years to support the Global Environmental Facility, an international fund to promote clean and efficient energy, biodiversity protection, and water-restoration efforts in developing nations. The Bush administration contributed $500 million of that total, but is currently about […]
-
![]()
![]()
The Bush administration braces for eco-chaos
A series of internal White House memos obtained by Grist sheds light on the Bush administration’s private response to increasing reports of looming environmental crises. Contrary to popular opinion, it appears President Bush is far from oblivious to the spate of dire ecological warnings that have emerged in recent months. In fact, his family’s personal […]
-
Now That Cali Took the T-bird Away
To the extent that somebody in the auto industry could be the darling of environmentalists, that somebody is William Clay Ford, Jr., chair and CEO of Ford Motor Co. Ford, who has earned kudos in the past for his eco-friendly outlook but has more recently drawn barbed comments from greenies, said yesterday that America’s love […]
-
Happy Contrails to You
Tragic as they were, the events of Sept. 11 provided an unexpected boon to climate science: They caused an unprecedented three-day interruption in U.S. air traffic that enabled scientists to assess the impact on the climate of condensation from jet planes. Those streaks of condensation, known as contrails, all but disappeared during the flight hiatus […]
-
Killer! Whale Suits
‘Tis the season to sue over whales. Environmentalists in the Pacific Northwest announced this week that they plan to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service over its decision to deny protected status to orca whales in Puget Sound. In June, the NMFS found that the local orca population, which has declined 20 percent since 1996, […]
-
That’s the Way the Cookie Grumbles
As anticipated, the U.S. EPA announced yesterday that it would seek to alter a key Clean Water Act anti-pollution program in order to give states more flexibility in restoring their waterways. Under the revised program, states would develop and implement plans to clean up more than 20,000 dirty rivers, lakes, and estuaries. While the federal […]
-
That Sinking Feeling
In other scientific news of the day, trees might not be a climate change magic bullet after all, according to a study published in today’s edition of Nature. Trees and shrubs have been regarded as an ideal carbon sink (meaning they absorb excess carbon dioxide, reducing the concentration of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere) […]
-
Watered Down
Nearly a third of all major industrial facilities and state-operated sewage-treatment plants in the U.S. have significantly violated clean water regulations in the last two years, and one out of four operated on an expired pollution permit last year, according to a recent report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Moreover, relatively few of […]
-
Grim Jim
Six tons of weapons-grade plutonium can continue on its way to South Carolina, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. The decision, which upheld a lower court ruling, was a blow to Gov. Jim Hodges (D), who has vociferously protested storing the waste in his state. Hodges argued that the Department of Energy needed to conduct […]
