Latest Articles
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Nema-toads
A federal appeals court upheld a Vermont law last week requiring manufacturers to label items that contain mercury. The 1998 law, the first of its kind in the United States, was challenged by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association on behalf of companies that produce fluorescent light bulbs containing mercury. NEMA argued that labeling the products […]
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I Want to Be an Army Rearranger
Measures designed to protect the remaining wetlands in the U.S. could be substantially weakened by a new U.S. Army Corps of Engineers policy, environmentalists and federal officials warn. A recent Corps letter outlines a retreat from a decade-old policy, instituted under George Bush the Elder, stating that the country’s total amount of wetlands cannot decrease. […]
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States of Disgrace
New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont may postpone for four years a requirement that automakers increase sales of electric cars to improve air quality. Two years ago, the states adopted California’s standard, which mandates that by next year, 8 percent of cars sold must be much cleaner than current cars and another 2 percent must be […]
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Morocco On!
As day broke on Saturday, delegates in Marrakech, Morocco, reached an 11th-hour agreement on the rules for implementing the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The agreement, which was the culmination of a two-week conference and four previous years of tough negotiations, mandates an average global reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 5.2 percent from 1990 […]
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Lake It or Not
Overuse and pollution of the world’s lakes threaten nearly 1 billion people who depend on lake water for fishing, irrigation, transportation, tourism, sewage, and drinking water, global experts said during an international conference on lake management being held this week in Japan. More than half of the world’s lakes and reservoirs are already suffering from […]
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Standards vs. the Poor?
The European Union is demanding that environmental issues be included in the latest round of World Trade Organization talks, which opened on Friday in Doha, Qatar. The E.U. wants environmental standards to be negotiated as a part of trade rules — and says the issue could be a “deal breaker” at the talks — but […]
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Ben Lilliston and Mark Ritchie, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Ben Lilliston is communications coordinator for and Mark Ritchie is president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a group based in Minneapolis, Minn., that works to keep family farmers on the land. Monday, 12 Nov 2001 DOHA, Qatar Ben Lilliston This morning, day three of the World Trade Organization meeting in Qatar, felt […]
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How the bear inside you could save the world
“Sobs racked the body of a middle-aged man as he cradled the head of his baby, its dust-covered body dressed only in a blue diaper, lying beside the bodies of three other children, their colorful clothes layered with debris from their shattered homes.” I held this sentence, from a Reuters report on the civilian casualties […]
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An Anti-Globalization Movement by Any Other Name
Your letters on how environmentalism will regroup in the wake of Sept. 11 made it clear that the movement is still alive and kicking. And other letters — on hybrid vehicles, eco-agriculture, globalization — show that Grist readers, at least, are still thinking about the whole environmental picture. Re: Visualize Whirled Peace Dear […]
