Latest Articles
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Elephants: Never Forget
A shocking 80 percent of wild elephants in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam fell victim to the ivory trade between 1988 and 2000, according to a report issued yesterday by Save the Elephants. The report blamed French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, and Chinese tourists for driving the trade in ivory trinkets, and said Thailand was the […]
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Melissa Waage, Green Corps
Melissa Waage is completing a one-year training program through Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing. Sunday, 24 Feb 2002 WASHINGTON, D.C. My Sunday began in Asheville, N. C. I woke up a little late, but within an hour I had packed everything I own into three giant Tupperware bins, several backpacks, and a […]
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The Polluter Pays … Less and Less
The Superfund toxic waste cleanup program was founded under the slogan “the polluter pays” and got its name from the vast financial reserves in the account. Now both the slogan and the name are misleading; the Bush administration has announced that it will not reinstate corporate taxes to boost the dwindling funds in the account, […]
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What a Heel
With President Bush still scoring stunningly high in public opinion polls, the environment is shaping up to be his Achilles’ heel — and Democrats aren’t hesitating to aim their arrows. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), both potential presidential candidates for 2004, have attacked Bush’s environmental policies, and former Vice President Al Gore […]
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A Tale of Two Tribes
Two Inuit tribes — the Inupiat and the Gwich’in — live just 150 miles apart, but when it comes to the debate over oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a vast ideological gulf separates them. A few hundred Inupiat live in Kaktovic, the only town inside the borders of the refuge; […]
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Silicon Death Valley
Nineteenth century labor conditions and 21st century technology are clashing in impoverished areas of Asia, where millions of tons of obsolete high-tech gear are shipped from the U.S. to be stripped of valuable parts. The practice, which is highly dangerous for both workers and the environment, is documented in a new report released today by […]
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Solutia-ns
Chemical giant Monsanto and its spin-off company Solutia are legally responsible for polluting the town of Anniston, Ala., with PCBs, a jury ruled Friday morning. The verdict represents an initial victory for the people of Anniston, but the battle is far from over: Some 3,500 individual claims of illness and financial loss have yet to […]
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Scream of the Crop
Genetically modified crops should be subject to stricter and more public review prior to being approved for use, as well as more careful monitoring in the field afterward, a panel convened by the National Academy of Sciences determined yesterday. The panel said its recommendations were intended to “improve an already functioning system” of monitoring GM […]
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Gone With the Wind
Enron, the financially (and, some would say, morally) bankrupt energy trading firm, announced this week that it will sell its wind-turbine business to General Electric. If the transaction is approved by bankruptcy court and federal regulators, Enron will use the proceeds — a rumored $250 million — to repay creditors, while GE will use the […]
