Latest Articles
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Speedy Gone-zales
Mexico is losing forests at almost twice the rate previously thought, the country’s Environment Ministry announced yesterday. A new multi-agency study of satellite images taken from 1993 and 2000 found that average forest loss in that time was about 2.78 million acres a year, the world’s second-highest deforestation rate. Over the eight years, the amount […]
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Free-range Checking
The Sante Fe group Forest Guardians is hoping to raise $1 million to boot cattle from thousands of state-owned acres in Arizona and New Mexico. In late November, the group won a case before Arizona’s Supreme Court that ended a state policy of allowing only ranchers to lease state school trust land, which includes about […]
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ANWR Sedated
The latest attempt by U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling tanked yesterday when almost the entire Senate (including Murkowski!) voted against it. Working with Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Murkowski had hoped to tag the GOP energy bill and a separate anti-human-cloning bill on to an […]
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Take That Back
Maryland yesterday became the first state to lose the authority to enforce federal clean air laws. The loss is the result of the state’s failure to act on a U.S. EPA order to create more public participation in the industrial permit application process. Under Maryland law, only the owners of property abutting an industrial polluter […]
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Pulling Back the Rains
A single rainstorm can whisk 10,000 tons of dirt and grit and millions of pounds of toxics and nutrient pollution into the Chesapeake Bay. Officials from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the District of Columbia are unveiling plans today to rein in rain-related pollution problems, in the first major restoration effort they’ve announced since pledging well […]
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Sprayer in Schools
Republicans on a congressional conference committee killed legislation on Friday that sought to protect public school students and staff from pesticides. The School Environment Protection Act would have required schools to notify parents when pesticides were being sprayed, and directed states to develop pest-management plans that considered alternatives to toxic sprays. All Democrats on the […]
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Zuni Day, Sweeping the Clods Away
The Zuni Pueblo tribe is joining forces with the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, and other enviro groups to fight a utility’s plans to strip-mine coal from 18,000 acres of state, federal, and private land in western New Mexico. The coalition says the mining would draw water from the Zuni Salt Lake, where […]
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Plan Nein
In a move that frustrated environmentalists, the U.S. Forest Service said on Friday that it would delay revising management plans for most national forests in the Northwest until 2012. Under a timetable set by Congress, the multi-year plans had been slated to be revamped by 2005; enviro groups had hoped to use the scientific and […]
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That's It!
Touting it as an environmentally friendly alternative to cars, inventor Dean Kamen finally unveiled his mysterious creation to the world this morning. The gizmo — which has gone by the codenames “IT” and “Ginger,” but will be marketed under the more prosaic “Segway Human Transporter” — turns out to be a one-person, two-wheeled, battery-powered scooter […]
