Latest Articles
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My Sediments Exactly
Damage to the Missouri River “is clear and continuing” and could lead to “irreversible extinction of species,” according to a comprehensive report released yesterday by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The report called for “immediate and decisive action” and echoed demands by environmentalists to recreate an approximation of the river’s natural ebb and flow. […]
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Gene De Florette
Use of genetically modified (GM) seeds is on the rise among U.S. farmers, according to an informal poll conducted at the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual meeting. The survey questioned 321 farmers without regard to farm size, state, or other criteria; the results suggest that GM corn plantings will soar this year, and that GM […]
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A Pain in the Anniston
The number of plaintiffs in a lawsuit against pesticide and food giant Monsanto will dwindle following an Alabama county court ruling that only people who have actually become sick, allegedly from PCB poisoning, have standing in the trial. The plaintiffs contend that Monsanto and its spin-off company, Solutia Inc., were cognizant of the health hazards […]
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David Brower leaves a legacy for dolphins
The one-year anniversary of the death of environmental legend David Brower has come and gone, just a week after the U.S. Department of Justice decided not to appeal a dolphin protection lawsuit the Earth Island Institute filed with Dave back in 1999. Dolphins on the run. Photo: NOAA. For reasons that are still unknown, a […]
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Meredith Hall reviews Tinkering with Eden and Nature Out of Place
I love my hometown, but I have a bone to pick with a few of its inhabitants -- especially the green ones. It's not the lively Nader supporters of Portland, Ore., that I have hard feelings for, but rather the guileful botanic creepers that go by the common name English ivy. Botanic enemy number one is a luscious green forest dweller, a lazy gardener's groundcover, a symbol of old-world garden sophistication -- and, in Portland, an insidious invasive species. English ivy (Hedera helix, for the botanically savvy) infests more than half of the city's forests, choking out trees, ferns, and any other struggling forest undergrowth.
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Blood Is Thicker Than Water
It was a family affair, but the significance was national: President Bush and his brother Jeb, the governor of Florida, signed an agreement yesterday to guarantee that water captured by a $7.8 billion Florida Everglades restoration effort will indeed go toward reviving the national park. Because the state and federal governments have potentially competing interests […]
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Tank You Very Much
A technique invented to reduce corrosion of steel components on ships could also prevent exotic species from stowing away in the ballast water of cargo ships. The technique, which was designed by Mario Tamburri of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in collaboration with Japanese scientists, involves pumping nitrogen gas into ballast tanks, thereby virtually […]
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Lord of the Wrings
Lord Peter Melchett, the former head of Greenpeace U.K., has accepted a position with the public relations company Burson-Marsteller, which numbers among its clients the pesticide and food company Monsanto. Long a leading target for green groups, Monsanto is currently drawing fire for its production and promotion of genetically modified (GM) foods. Melchett, who led […]
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Coal bed methane extraction threatens Wyoming’s Red Desert
OREGON BUTTES, Wyo. Tom Bell remembers how plush the carpet was in Interior Secretary Stewart Udall’s Washington, D.C., office. Bell spent time on his hands and knees there during the 1960s, poring over a large map while making the case for preserving Wyoming’s Red Desert as a national pronghorn antelope refuge. The Pinnacles in the […]
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Rey of Sunshine
A controversial Bush administration plan to log trees harmed in fires that raged in the Bitterroot National Forest in 2000 was halted yesterday by a federal judge in Montana. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy also excoriated Mark Rey, natural resources and environment undersecretary for the Agriculture Department, for bypassing a 45-day public appeals process and […]
