Latest Articles
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Moscowl
Not much of the northern forest in the European portion of Russia is still standing and many of the trees that haven’t been felled are in jeopardy, according to a report released by Greenpeace Russia and Global Forest Watch. Russian researchers who spent five years mapping the forest for the report say that the largest […]
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Toodle-oo, Tuvalu
New Zealand has agreed to welcome an annual quota of immigrants from the tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu, where rising sea levels are forcing residents from their homes. Tuvalu, a nine-island archipelago halfway between Hawaii and Australia, blames global warming for the higher ocean levels, as well as for coastal erosion, droughts, and unusually severe […]
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Authority Figures
The Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest public power provider, announced late last week that it would invest $1.5 billion in reducing sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-fired plants. The money will be used to install five smokestack-scrubber systems at plants in Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky beginning in 2005. Stephen Smith, director of the Southern Alliance […]
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Wave Hello
The ocean may supply Canada with power for the first time if the Canadian company B.C. Hydro proceeds with plans to build wave-energy plants in British Columbia. Although a few such plants exist in Europe and others are being tested in Washington state, the ocean is a relatively untapped energy source. The Canadian plants would […]
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Foulbanks, Alaska
More than 100 workers are busily cleaning up a 285,600-gallon oil spill outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, that began Thursday when a man fired a .338 caliber rifle at the trans-Alaskan pipeline. About a third of the spilled oil has been recovered, but a representative of the company managing the cleanup said it would be years […]
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Ready, Willing, and Cable?
Environmentalists are concerned about a proposal by the state of Florida to streamline a lengthy approval process for laying undersea fiber-optic cables by creating four authorized submarine telecommunications corridors off Broward and Palm Beach counties. Under the proposal, cables laid within the corridors would be subject to a one-month approval process, rather than the yearlong […]
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David Friedman, Union of Concerned Scientists
David Friedman is a senior analyst with the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. UCS educates and works with the public to advocate for environmental solutions based on the best scientific understanding. The Clean Vehicles Program develops and promote strategies to reduce the adverse impacts of the U.S. transportation system. Monday, 8 […]
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Driven to Drink
The average fuel efficiency of new vehicles has hit a two-decade low of 20.4 miles per gallon, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. EPA. The report attributed the decline in fuel economy largely to the popularity of sports utility vehicles, which get notoriously poor fuel economy and are regulated by laxer rules […]
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Rock On!
Canadian Minister of Health Allan Rock said yesterday that labels on genetically modified food should be mandatory in the country. In August, a national task force recommended a voluntary labeling system in Canada, but Rock said the country should instead follow the lead of the European Union, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, and impose labeling […]
