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Whale Like a Banshee

After a 10-year struggle to reclaim its whaling rights, Iceland has finally gotten the green light from the International Whaling Commission to resume commercial hunting. The commission outlawed commercial whaling in 1986, but Iceland and Norway refused to accept the ban. Norway negotiated to remain part of the commission and hang onto its hunting rights, […]

Would You Like an Excise Tax With That?

British biodiesel users, beware of bobbies! Police in Great Britain have cracked down on users of the alternative fuel, most recently staging a bust that bagged more than a dozen motorists in the Welsh seaside town of Burry Port. Biodiesel is essentially refined vegetable oil that burns more cleanly than conventional diesel; as the folks […]

Quita Sullivan, Alternatives for Community & Environment

Quita Sullivan is staff attorney for Alternatives for Community & Environment, where she also directs a pro bono network of professionals to assist communities with environmental justice issues. She is a member of the Montaukett Tribe of Long Island, N.Y. and a fellow of theEnvironmental Leadership Program. Monday, 14 Oct 2002 ROXBURY, Mass. It seems […]

The Owl and the Pussycats

Canadian wilderness activists still can’t get over their astonishment or their delight over yesterday’s announcement by International Forest Products (Interfor) that it would halt all logging in spotted owl habitat in British Columbia, Canada. The company is the second-most active logger in the endangered owl’s terrain; not long ago it was considered Public Enemy No. […]

Air on the Side of Caution

With just two weeks left in the official California smog season, the data are in: After years of air-quality improvements, the state experienced a sudden downturn this year, enduring a shroud of haze and ozone pollution even in areas unaccustomed to smog. The usual suspects — urban communities like San Francisco and the famously smoggy […]

Cheetos Sometimes Prosper

Here are two words you never thought you’d see next to each other: organic Cheetos. Yep, it’s true — snack-food maker Frito Lay is entering the organic food market, along with dozens of other huge food companies. Heinz now makes organic ketchup, and General Mills owns Cascadian Farms, an organic brand started in the Northwest […]

Billions and Billions Swerved

It’s been 13 years since the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, and eight years since a jury awarded $5 billion in punitive damages against the company — and three days since a federal judge began hearing arguments that the award was inappropriate. After the 1994 case, […]

Wet Behind the Ears

In what it is calling a remedy to the excesses of the Clinton years, the Bush administration is paving the way for Western states to gain control over huge volumes of water previously claimed by the federal government. One prominent example of this new policy involves the Black Canyon National Park in Colorado; in 1978, […]

Invasion of the Habitat Snatchers

Earlier this year, the northern snakehead — that flesh-eating, land-crawling invasive fish — colonized a Maryland pond and an entire country’s imagination. But the snakehead is small fry compared to the larger problem of nonnative species in the U.S.: According to a report released yesterday by the National Wildlife Refuge Association, 8 million of the […]

Send in the Marine Reserves

Australia has unveiled plans to create the world’s largest marine reserve in 16 million acres of the Indian Ocean, 2,500 miles off the nation’s southwest coast. The Heard Island and McDonald Islands Marine Reserve will be twice the size of Switzerland and will protect one of the world’s most pristine marine environments from exploitation, including […]