Latest Articles
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Gary Hughes, conservation researcher
Gary Hughes is a graduate student in the University of Montana Environmental Studies Program, who is traveling and researching conservation issues in Chilean and Argentine Patagonia. The things he misses most about Montana are skiing in the trees and working with the Missoula grassroots solidarity organization Community Action for Justice in the Americas. Monday, 26 […]
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Pressure Whitewash
In 1997, Randy Walli, a pipe fitter at the Hanford nuclear power plant in Washington state, was told to help build a pipeline using valves that would be subjected to more pressure than specified by the manufacturer. Concerned about the possible impact on himself, his fellow workers, and the environment, Walli blew the whistle. The […]
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Feet of Clay
The Ford Motor Company might have to eat its words if its fleet of sport utility vehicles continues to gobble gas. Last summer, company reps promised to improve SUV fuel efficiency 25 percent by 2005. Not willing to be outdone, the two other Big Three automakers — General Motors and DaimlerChrysler — said they’d keep […]
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The U.S. takes the war against terrorism to the Amazon
United States military forces bombed the Amazon rainforest today, Pentagon officials said. The predawn assault targeted key habitats of several crucial wildlife species, thought to have been dug in for many years. “Parrots hate freedom,” President Bush said in a press conference shortly after the first squadron of B-2s left a base in San Paolo. […]
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Brussels Sprouting
Environmental negotiations with 10 Eastern European countries hoping to join the European Union by 2004 will near completion by the end of the year, E.U. officials announced Thursday. Environmental protection is considered one of the biggest obstacles facing Eastern European nations interested in joining the E.U.; for the 10 countries — Cyprus, the Czech Republic, […]
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I Wanna Be Like Myco
They’re good in salads, lovely with pasta … and great for the earth? The humble mushroom could help clean up everything from oil spills to pesticides, thanks to a new technology called mycoremediation. Mushroom expert Paul Stamets pioneered the technology against the bacteria E. coli and then partnered with scientists at the Pacific Northwest National […]
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Redefining the "American way of life"Nonsense and Sensibility
It takes only the first raw scent of the smoldering piles of debris at Ground Zero and a quick glance at the guts of the blasted, black-charred remains of the World Trade Center to immediately agree with President Bush that the Sept. 11 attacks were a direct strike at what he called “the American way […]
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Vitamin Sea
Could the answer to controlling global climate change lie in the ocean? Carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, is naturally absorbed into the ocean, where it does not affect atmospheric temperatures. Now some scientists and entrepreneurs want to artificially augment that process to increase carbon dioxide absorption and control global warming. In one plan, CO2 […]
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Domestic oil and gas is not the ticket to U.S. energy security
America’s fragile domestic infrastructure threatens her energy security at least as much as dependence on oil from the Middle East. Replacing oil from that region with even more vulnerable domestic systems would therefore decrease energy security. Stranger than science fiction. Extraordinarily concentrated energy flows invite and reward devastating attack. In our 1982 Pentagon study Brittle […]