Latest Articles

World Bunker

Citing the disruptiveness of protests and a fear of violence, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have decided to cram their annual meetings into two days next month in Washington, D.C., instead of a week. When the meetings last occurred, in April 2000, police arrested more than 600 protesters. Just to make sure […]

Mighty Morphin' Power Rearrangers

Not wanting to provoke another attack from environmentalists, the Bush administration said yesterday that it would delay announcing its plan for overhauling regulation of aging power plants and instead include the plan as part of a more comprehensive package of clean-air policy options in September. President Bush had ordered the U.S. EPA to reassess the […]

Humpty Dumpty Sat on the Great Wall

Claims by China that it has significantly reduced its greenhouse gas emissions may be a bunch of hooey. A Japanese scientist funded by the World Bank found that coal production hasn’t gone down nearly as much as represented by China. Other researchers assert that oil consumption is increasing in the country at a faster clip […]

Rocky Mountain Low

Hoping to give himself a green sheen, President Bush traveled to Rocky Mountain National Park yesterday to engage in trail work for a few minutes and talk about character. “There’s a grand vision embodied in these mountains,” he said. “And the vision is that we can teach our children right from wrong.” He also criticized […]

Bug Bang Boom

A California appeals court ruled yesterday that pesticide companies can be sued over concerns that home bug sprays are making people sick. The court in Los Angeles rejected arguments by Dow Chemical and other chemical manufacturers that they were protected from suits covering chemicals approved by the U.S. EPA for residential use. It said the […]

Spell 'Pig' Backwards and Say 'Funny'

In a pioneering study examining the exposure of urban and suburban children to household pesticides, all but one of 96 Seattle-area preschool children were found to have trace levels of pesticide in their urine, according to researchers at the University of Washington. The study found that "children whose families reported pesticide use in their gardens […]

Green Lantern

Thanks to new LED lamps, thousands of green traffic lights in the Los Angeles area have been retrofitted to use 80 percent less electricity than in the past. The old green lights used 135-watt incandescent bulbs that lasted about a year; the new LEDs require only 17 watts and last from 10 to 15 years […]

Spreading Like Wildfire

The Bush administration and governors from Western states agreed yesterday to the outlines of a 10-year plan to reduce the risk of wildfire, but postponed until next spring discussion on how the plan would be implemented. In the past, fire authorities focused on suppressing fires that had already begun. The new plan focuses on better […]

Hodge Podge

South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges (D) said last week that he would do "whatever it takes" to keep plutonium shipments from coming to the Savannah River Site, a nuclear-processing complex run by the U.S. Energy Department near Aiken, S.C. Hodges says the Bush administration has gone back on a plan he worked out with the […]

Not in a While, Crocodile

Enviros say more than 10,000 endangered crocodiles in Paraguay are dying because a major river that irrigated their swamplands is now being diverted to provide water for agriculture in Argentina. The crocodiles, known as Yacares, are starving to death or being encased in mud as the swamps dry up. Their numbers had been climbing before […]