Latest Articles
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Not-so-secret Agent
Four decades after the U.S. started using Agent Orange in Vietnam, the two countries will begin working together to assess the effects of the toxic chemical on human health and the environment. Agent Orange is a defoliant that contains TCDD, the most dangerous form of dioxin, which causes cancer, immune system malfunction, and birth defects. […]
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Winding Down?
What is the world coming to? Denmark, that model of eco-friendliness, announced last week that it would prioritize financial competitiveness over environmental sensitivity — and that, as a result, it would stop subsidizing the installation of new wind turbines beginning in 2004. Economy Minister Bendt Bendtsen said electricity generated by wind turbines was too expensive […]
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An Ocean in Iowa
Forget that image of pretty pastoral farmhouses dotting the rural U.S. landscape: The reality is that farms are responsible for an ever-increasing amount of pollution that poses a significant threat to rivers, the ocean, and wildlife. A recent study by the Pew Oceans Commission found that fertilizer runoff and livestock feedlots were among the fastest […]
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Love Birds?
It’s tough to be a po’ouli as Valentine’s Day approaches. Actually, it’s tough to be a po’ouli on any day. Scientists are doing their darnedest to save the extraordinarily rare Hawaiian honeycreeper from extinction — and right now, that means matchmaking. A team of biologists has outfitted the one known male po’ouli with a tiny […]
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Not Sharky’s Day
The cruel practice of shark-finning — in which the fins are sliced off of living sharks to make soup — has found its way into the heavily protected waters of Egypt’s Red Sea. The discovery of illegal shark-fin fishing in the region has alarmed both environmentalist and tourism operators in the region. Underwater tourism in […]
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Chesa-piqued
Saying that chemical contamination in the city’s water supply led to miscarriages and infant deaths, 25 women have sued Chesapeake, Va., and almost 170 more plan to do so. According to a growing number of studies, the chlorine commonly used to purify drinking water can cause birth defects and miscarriages when it mixes with organic […]
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Katie Alvord, author
Katie Alvord is the author of Divorce Your Car! Ending the Love Affair with the Automobile. She lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Monday, 11 Feb 2002 UPPER PENINSULA, Mich. It’s Monday morning and I’ve just completed my regular commute: strolling from bedroom to office, a journey of 22 steps, in my slippers. I […]
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Big. Yellow. Different. Worse.
The wheels on the bus go round and round, and the diesel fumes from the bus go far and wide. That’s the bad news from a study released yesterday by the Union of Concerned Scientists analyzing emissions from the nation’s 454,000 school buses. Nine out of 10 of those buses are powered by diesel fuel, […]
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Bitter Sweet
Two years of wrangling and two days of intensive, closed-door negotiations ended in compromise yesterday when the U.S. Forest Service and environmentalists agreed to allow limited logging of burned timber in Montana’s Bitterroot National Forest. Under the terms of the agreement, the USFS will begin logging about 14,770 burned acres; in exchange, it will not […]
