Latest Articles

All Wet

For almost a decade, developers have been required by federal law to create 1.78 acres of wetlands for every acre they destroy. Sounds great, but a new study by Washington State’s Department of Ecology found that only about 13 percent of 24 replacement wetlands in the state are successful. Wetlands-protection rules were established to protect […]

A Patagonia on the Back

Gearheads have reason to feel smug about their Patagonia fleeces these days. Once again, the company appears among Fortune Magazine’s top 100 places to work in the U.S. — and this time it moved up 17 places in the rankings, to number 41. The company sold $223 million worth of outdoor gear last year, but […]

Salt of the Earth

Tim Salt, a 27-year veteran of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, has been reassigned from his key post refereeing land-use disputes in the California desert, in a move environmentalists say is a capitulation to miners, ranchers, and off-road vehicle enthusiasts. As manager of the BLM’s 11 million-acre California Desert District, Salt drew the ire […]

Asthma: World Turns

For the first time, researchers have concluded that smog can cause asthma, rather than just aggravate it. In the 10-year study, being published in the British journal Lancet, investigators followed children participating in athletics in 12 Southern California communities. Six of the communities had some of the nation’s poorest air quality, while six enjoyed relatively […]

“No Way,” Says Norway

Long unhappy about pollution from Britain’s Sellafield nuclear power plant, Norway announced yesterday that it would call for a binding international agreement to force polluting countries to pay for toxic cleanups beyond their own borders. The nation’s foreign affairs committee voted unanimously to ask the government to impose economic sanctions on the U.K. until radioactive […]

A Good Deed

The U.S. took a significant step toward acquiring its 57th national park yesterday when the Nature Conservancy announced that it had signed an agreement to purchase historic Baca Ranch, which borders Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes National Monument and Preserve. Conservationists have long lobbied for national park status for the area, which includes the tallest sand […]

Generally Stalled Motors

General Motors Corp. is not doing nearly enough to improve the fuel economy of its vehicles, according to a report released yesterday. That might not seem like news, but the organization that released the report, the Boston-based Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies, has been consulting with GM for almost 10 years and has been praised […]

Weeping and Railing

Convinced that “potentially significant” environmental problems could be avoided, federal regulators yesterday approved the largest railroad construction project in recent history. The project, a $1.4 billion, 900-mile line linking Wyoming coal fields to the Mississippi River, was okayed after the Surface Transportation Board, a branch of the Department of Transportation, imposed 147 conditions to protect […]

Low-carbon Riders

In a move that could have radical implications for the automobile industry, the California Assembly passed a bill yesterday that would make it the first state to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles as a step toward curbing global warming. Because about 10 percent of the nation’s new cars are sold in California, legislation affecting […]

Danube Blues

The Danube River in Europe may be blue, but it’s not very green — and its environmental problems are slated to get even worse, the World Wildlife Fund warns in a report being released today. More than 80 percent of the river’s wetlands and flood plains have already been destroyed in the name of flood […]