Latest Articles

Have Trash, Will Travel

Like a cross between hitchhikers and shipwrecked sailors, marine animals are straying from their normal habitats by catching rides on sea-borne trash, according to an article appearing in the current issue of the journal Nature. Marine organisms have always traveled from place to place via natural debris such as floating wood and pumice, but now […]

Phil Anthropist

Phil Anschutz is an unlikely hero for Native Americans and environmentalists. One of the richest people in the country and a mega-donor to the Republican Party, Anschutz made his fortune in oil before launching Qwest Communications. Last year, his oil company, Anschutz Exploration, won permission from the Bureau of Land Management to drill in Montana’s […]

We Lake It

In a blow to the property-rights movement, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday against Lake Tahoe property owners who had argued that they were entitled to monetary compensation from the government for restrictions placed on use of their land. The origins of the legal battle stretch back two decades, to when the Tahoe Regional Planning […]

Hi, I’m Not in Delaware

In the latest blow to its image, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has suspended a planned $311 million deepening of the Delaware River after learning that the General Accounting Office was preparing to question the project’s economic justification. Sources said GAO investigators believed the Corps had overstated the potential economic benefits of the project […]

Corn Huskers Motion

By a vote of 68 to 31, the Senate yesterday killed an attempt to remove a measure in the Democratic energy bill requiring U.S. refiners to triple their use of ethanol by 2012. The measure would increase nationwide use of the corn-based fuel additive from about 1.7 billion gallons this year to 5 billion gallons […]

Rodents of Usual Size

It’s a grand time to be a San Bernardino kangaroo rat — or as grand as they come for the endangered nine-inch rodent. Yesterday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated 33,295 acres of California’s San Bernardino and Riverside counties as critical habitat for the rats, meaning that it will be more difficult to win […]

Monumental Pains

It might not reach Arctic Refuge-proportions in its intensity, but a battle being joined today by the Bush administration over national monuments promises to be a doozy. It will encompass debates about everything from oil drilling to dirt bike-riding, and will pit Western lawmakers, landowners, and the recreational-vehicle industry — all of whom generally want […]

Umbra on corporate paper recycling

I work for a large corporation that is very wasteful with paper. I am looking for information on whom I can complain to about this so that something will happen. They do not use recycled paper or require any recycling of paper. Beth Dearest Beth, Prepare yourself: The fate of reams of office paper is […]

Umbra on farmed fish

I have a friend who is a homeopathic. She told me that I should stop eating pen-raised salmon because they are fed a lot of antibiotics. I was very disappointed because I thought I was eating a safe product. I don’t know how to get more info about this, but if you guys know anything […]

Let It Ride

In true gambler style, Las Vegas has upped the ante on us: In our April Fools’ edition, we joked that the city was going green by requiring energy-efficient lighting on its famous Strip. Now it seems that life imitates Grist, sort of: Although Las Vegas isn’t planning a mass purchase of compact fluorescent light bulbs, […]