Latest Articles

Empire State Green Building

A landmark sustainable building project in lower Manhattan is back on track after being delayed due to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Construction resumed recently on 20 River Terrace, one of the world’s first green residential skyscrapers, which will be located in Battery Park City a stone’s throw from Ground Zero. The 27-story tower, […]

The Sub-zero Continent

Sun-scorched India is fast becoming one of the world’s hottest markets for air conditioners, as manufacturers rush to capitalize on an unsaturated market and a consumer base with rising disposable incomes. The average price for air conditioners in India has dropped by about 20 percent over the past two years, and sales have been booming; […]

Bed Head

An Interior Department appeals board has upheld its earlier ruling that three of the leases for a coal bed methane (CBM) drilling project in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin were issued without adequate environmental review. Environmentalists hope the decision will help block pending leases for such drilling on millions of acres throughout the Rocky Mountain region. […]

High-drogen

The European Union is homing in on hydrogen as a way to meet its ambitious goals of generating 22 percent of its electricity and 12 percent of all energy from renewables by 2010. Energy independence is increasingly urgent for Europe, which imports a whopping 70 percent of its oil and gas from foreign sources, including […]

Superfund Meets Kryptonite

Under the Bush administration, the Superfund program to clean up toxic-waste sites is seemingly becoming not-so-super. In the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the U.S. EPA completed cleanups at 42 toxic waste sites, down from 47 in the previous 12 months. This year’s total was unimpressive compared to the average of 76 sites cleaned […]

Greens in the Red

It’s not just investors who are bearing the brunt of the bear market: U.S. and Canadian environmental nonprofits are learning that when the stock market shrinks, so do the coffers of their financial supporters. A recent survey found that 10 leading private foundations in the U.S. lost $8.3 billion in the first six months of […]

Nevada Protest Site

Sixty-six environmental justice activists, hailing from a broad range of states, were arrested early this week in Nevada after demonstrating over the weekend against nuclear energy and weapons. The protesters, including individuals from South Carolina, Washington, and Mississippi, blamed nuclear facilities for high rates of cancer, birth defects, and skin disorders in black, Latino, and […]

Viva Las Vegas

Las Vegas, Nev., the desert-turned-oasis of slot machines, plastic pyramids, and indoor waterfalls, is now undergoing a new kind of metamorphosis: A former 10-mile-long sewage gully is being transformed into a wetlands park that will be one of the largest swaths of locally preserved land in the nation. For 25 years, the Las Vegas “Wash” […]

Pop Mart

What do butter, meat loaf, cantaloupe, peanuts, and popcorn have in common? Persistent organic pollutants. Banned in the U.S. since the 1970s, POPs such as the pesticides DDT and deldrin still contaminate 20 percent of the food we eat, according to a report by the San Francisco-based Pesticide Action Network. Based on an analysis of […]

Come on In, the Water’s Fine

Ecologists and sport-fishing fans have succeeded in blocking a decree by the Mexican government that would have increased commercial shark fishing and threatened other fish stocks. Mexico currently requires shark vessels to stay 50 miles offshore; the new rule would have allowed them to come within a half-mile of the coast, dragging mile-wide nets and […]