Latest Articles
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N'yuk, N'yuk, N'Yucca
All the effort by the feds to determine whether Nevada’s Yucca Mountain would be a suitable place to permanently store the country’s nuclear waste can be summed up as “a failed scientific process,” according to a draft report by the General Accounting Office, the congressional watchdog agency. The report, which has been obtained by several […]
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The Skipper Too?
The niftily named Carson wandering skipper — a butterfly that is no bigger than a thumbnail — has been given emergency protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The feds took the step yesterday to help preserve the butterfly’s habitat in two counties along the northern border of Nevada and California. Bob Williams of the […]
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A Bitterroot to Swallow
U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth has asked his superiors in the Agriculture Department to approve a salvage-logging plan for 46,000 acres that burned in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley last year. Assuming that Agriculture Undersecretary (and former timber lobbyist) Mark Rey okays the plan, Bosworth will have skirted the administrative appeals process to which such plans […]
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Help, Aquaman!
Global fish stocks are dramatically lower than reported by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, scientists at the University of British Columbia announced today in an article in the journal Nature. The scientists’ findings — that global catches are decreasing by nearly 800 million pounds per year — directly contradict those of the FAO, […]
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Right Turnabout
The outlook is grim for the Northern right whale, one of the most endangered animals in the world, but simple measures could bring the species back from the brink of extinction, according to a report released today. The authors of the report, scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, concluded that if just […]
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Plane Sailing
Taking a cue from automakers, the industry giant Boeing is looking into replacing auxiliary engines on its planes with cleaner, quieter, and more efficient fuel cells. Fuel cells, which combine hydrogen and oxygen to make electricity, are already being tested extensively in cars, and all the major automakers plan to produce pilot fuel-cell models in […]
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Not Just Intel Inside
Aging computers are fast becoming one of the nation’s thorniest waste management problems, but U.S high-tech companies are lagging behind on recycling efforts. A report issued Monday by the Computer Take Back Coalition gave high environmental marks to Japanese companies such as Canon, Sony, Fujitsu, and Toshiba for recycling old machines, limiting use of hazardous […]
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The Ends of the Earth Summit?
The aftershocks of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States are reaching halfway around the world, rendering uncertain the planning and financing for the World Summit On Sustainable Development, to be held next year in South Africa. The event, which is organized by the United Nations and is better known as the Earth […]
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Sting Like a Butterfly
Every year, millions of migrating Monarch butterflies make their way from Canada to central Mexico, where they reproduce and overwinter in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Trouble is, 60 percent of that reserve has disappeared in the last few decades due to logging. Now Mexican officials say they are getting serious about protecting the reserve, […]
