Latest Articles

The Bycatcher in the Rye

“Save the whales!” “Save the dolphins!” Those were rallying cries of the environmental movement in the 1980s and ’90s, and they culminated in a successful campaign for “dolphin-safe” tuna — that is, tuna-fishing practices in the Pacific Ocean that wouldn’t harm marine mammals. Unfortunately, scientists now say that commercial fishing in the Atlantic and elsewhere […]

Caterpillar Metamorphoses Into Beautiful Lobbyist

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and a coalition of Republican colleagues, manufacturers, and trucking industry reps are pressuring the Bush administration to postpone a strict new anti-pollution standard for diesel trucks. Why? Because Illinois-based Caterpillar, Inc., one of the leading manufacturers of 18-wheel diesel tractor-trailers and a significant Republican campaign contributor, could face millions […]

Kenny Get Your Guinn

President Bush signed into law yesterday the measure approving Nevada’s Yucca Mountain as the nation’s nuclear-waste burial ground, which was approved two weeks ago by Congress. The signing, closed to journalists and attended by only a handful of allies who were instrumental in brokering the bill’s passage, marks the official end of Nevada’s legislative fight […]

Flow-rida

The Bush administration yesterday revised its proposed rules for the $7.8 billion renovation of the Florida Everglades, with environmentalists greeting the changes as imperfect but undeniably better than the last draft. Under the new rules, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District would still lead the restoration effort, but […]

Johnny Panic-grass Seed

As New Zealand wrestles with the fate of very new crops, a seed bank in the U.S. Southwest is wrestling with the fate of very old ones. Based in Tucson, Ariz., Native Seeds/SEARCH preserves and passes on rare seeds planted by Native Americans. Although the growing conditions in much of the Southwest are harsh — […]

I Wish They All Could Be California Governors

California Gov. Gray Davis (D) signed trailblazing legislation yesterday that will require automobile manufacturers to reduce the amount of greenhouse-gas emissions coming from the tailpipes of passenger vehicles in the state. Under the terms of the new law, the California Air Resources Board has until 2005 to set “maximum” but “economically feasible” emissions standards for […]

Zealander

New Zealand is one of the last countries in the world to have a food-production system entirely free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). But that could change when nearly 4 million voters go to the polls this Saturday to decide whether to lift a moratorium on the use of GMOs next year. In fact, the […]

Condom-nation

The Bush administration said yesterday that it would withdraw $34 million in international family planning funds from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), arguing that the organization supports programs in China that force women to have abortions, in direct violation of U.S. law. U.N. officials denied promoting abortions in China (or anywhere else, for that […]

Flaming-goes

They’re thriving as campy lawn statues across America, but in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, the Caribbean flamingo is flirting with extinction — again. In the 1950s, the region’s flamingo population, Mesoamerica’s lone flamingo colony, dwindled to a mere 5,000 birds. But the population recovered in the sanctuary of the 200-square-mile Ria Lagartos Biosphere Reserve, […]

Jonathan Clough, environmental modeler

Jonathan Clough is an environmental computer consultant based out of Warren, Vt. Monday, 22 Jul 2002 WARREN, Vt. The first thing you should know about a week in the life of an environmental modeler is that it is remarkably glamorous. Straight up glamour. Glamorous enough that 14-year-old girls write me fan mail and ask for […]