Latest Articles

Joltin’ Joe

In the most scathing attack on George W. Bush since the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) blasted the president’s environmental record in a speech made yesterday in California. Lieberman, a possible presidential candidate in 2004 and one of 15 senators to be recognized by the League of Conservation Voters for a […]

Pax With the Devil

Enron is seldom called “socially conscious” these days — but that’s how some investment companies routinely described the company in the not-too-distant past. The Pax World Balanced Fund, which promotes investing in good corporate citizens, and the Domini 400 Social Index and Calvert Social Index, which screen stocks based on social and environmental criteria, all […]

Send Me the Ivory Bill

Call it a wild goose chase: A 30-day search through a southern Louisiana swamp was called off yesterday after some of the world’s top ornithologists failed to find the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker. The bird, once the largest North American woodpecker with a wingspan of up to 33 inches, has not been seen for certain since […]

GE, We Bring Bad Things to Fish

The Bush administration asked a federal judge yesterday to dismiss a challenge by General Electric to the Superfund toxic waste cleanup law. Companies faced with multi-million dollar cleanup costs have repeatedly attacked the 1980 law, arguing that it leads to more legal tangles than environmental improvements. In the most recent sally, GE filed suit in […]

They’re All Ears

Farm states and the environment both stand to gain from a provision in a Democratic energy bill that would require gasoline refiners to triple their use of corn-based ethanol by 2012. The provision, written by Senate majority leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), would also phase out the use of the petrochemical MTBE by 2006. Both ethanol […]

Canada Dry?

Perhaps following the cue of its southern neighbor, Canada announced earlier this week that it’s in no hurry to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change. The announcement, made by Environment Minister David Anderson, marked a shift from an earlier suggestion that the nation might endorse Kyoto by as early as June. With the […]

Kenya Believe It?

If Kenya gets its way, water distribution in east Africa could change dramatically: The nation’s energy minister, Raila Odinga, has called for a review of the 1929 British colonial treaty that grants Egypt the right to veto projects involving use of the headwaters of the Nile. Odinga called the treaty outdated and said it fails […]

Hatching a New Plan

In the first systematic attempt to reform Washington State’s fish-hatchery system — the world’s largest — the Hatchery Scientific Review Group issued a report yesterday recommending the closure of one Puget Sound-area hatchery and alterations for 22 others. The salmon born in Washington State’s 100-plus hatcheries are thought to pose a threat to wild salmon […]

They Drilled Kenny!

President Bush approved on Friday a plan to bury the nation’s radioactive waste in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, provoking a firestorm of outrage and an immediate lawsuit by the state’s governor, Kenny Guinn (R). The federal government has spent 10 years and $4 – $7 billion on studying the Yucca site to determine if it is […]

Sea Change

The rise in sea levels this century due to glaciers and ice caps melting away under higher global temperatures could be almost three times what scientists have previously estimated, according to new data. The new information predicts that ocean levels will increase by between 6.7 and 10.6 inches by 2100 from glacial melt alone. The […]