Latest Articles

Polar Opposition

Last month, the leader of an Eskimo village in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service claiming that the Alaska Wilderness League, which works to prevent oil drilling in the refuge, misrepresented itself to obtain nonprofit 501(c)(3) tax status. The complaint alleges that the AWL is a lobbying group […]

Sunny Dispositions

San Francisco may be making headlines with its innovative plan to radically expand solar power generation, but other places deserve kudos as well, according to a study released last week by Greenpeace. The study, produced before the San Francisco plan was approved by voters last week, compared both planned and installed solar energy systems in […]

Double Tall, Hold the Pesticides

Starbucks announced this week that it will pay an extra 10 cents per pound for coffee beans that are grown on environmentally and socially responsible farms. The announcement, which was made at a growers conference in Costa Rica, comes at a time when a world coffee surplus has depressed wholesale prices to 40 cents per […]

Markey's Mark

Drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would mark a departure from more than three decades of government practice, according to a new report by the General Accounting Office, the congressional watchdog agency. The report shows that some type of energy extraction takes place in 13 percent of refuges, but that […]

The Throng Song

Throngs of environmental activists are protesting a shipment of nuclear waste making its way by train from France to Germany, and at least 100 have been detained by the police. The six containers of radioactive waste originated at a reprocessing plant in La Hague, in northern France, and will be stored in Gorleben, Germany, 375 […]

Monkey Business

Illegal trafficking in wildlife has become Brazil’s third-most profitable illegal activity after arms and drugs smuggling, generating up to $1 billion annually. An estimated 38 million wild animals are stolen from the country’s forests every year, according to a new report by the National Network Against the Trafficking of Wild Animals (RENCTAS). Eighty-two percent of […]

Patriot Games

When America entered World War II, the folks at home reduced, reused, and recycled in the name of patriotism. Now, as we enter a new war, it’s time to do the same, says David Hochschild, coordinator of San Francisco’s successful solar power initiative, in an op-ed co-authored by his mother, well-known writer Arlie Hochschild. Because […]

In the Navy, You Can Soil the Seven Seas

Donald Schregardus, who was nominated by President Bush to head the U.S. EPA enforcement division but withdrew from consideration following public outcry and opposition in the Senate, has been appointed to an environmental post in the Navy. Schregardus spent 17 years with the federal EPA and was director of the Ohio EPA for eight years; […]

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 […]

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. […]