Latest Articles

I've Got a Secret and I'm Not Telling

Vice President Dick Cheney has formally refused to turn over documents relating to the development of the Bush administration’s energy plan to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. The GAO may now take the White House to court over the issue. Democrats and enviros believe the energy plan was tailor-made for energy […]

At Whit's End

U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman now thinks her decision to revoke a Clinton administration rule to reduce arsenic in drinking water was a bone-headed move. She told USA Today that her decision wasn’t bad policy, but bad politics: “Politically, if I’d been smart, I would’ve never changed it. … I would’ve let the courts decide. […]

Coughing Up the Dough

In the latest victory for residents suffering from pollution-related health problems in a Japanese city, 10 companies agreed today to pay $12.2 million to 260 locals who went to court to protest emissions from the companies’ factories. The out-of-court settlement ends a 12-year dispute in which the Nagoya residents contended that the factory emissions and […]

Better Off Red Than Dead?

The water level of the Dead Sea is dropping by about three feet a year and may go dry by 2050, says Friends of the Earth in the Middle East. The group is sponsoring a photo competition to raise awareness of the plight of the popular tourist attraction, using the catchy tag line, “Let the […]

Driving the Numbers Up

The percentage of households in the U.S. with three or more cars (18.3 percent) is nearly double the percentage of households with no cars (9.3 percent), and more than 76 percent of Americans say they drive to work alone, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Only 11 percent of people carpool, and merely 5 percent […]

Amazon Raveforest

To promote protection of the Amazon rainforest, Greenpeace and Brazilian officials are hosting an “environmentally correct” dance party over four days in a recovered mine in the state of Amazonas. Dubbed “Ecosystem 1.0,” the rave features DJs from around the world playing music in tents shaped like local Indian huts, where nongenetically engineered foods will […]

Chip Off the Old Lifespan

Silicon Valley in California — where dozens of manufacturing facilities leaked tens of thousands of gallons of organic solvents and other toxic contaminants into the groundwater in the 1980s — is home to 29 Superfund sites, more than any other county in the U.S. Lead, mercury, and chromium are among the unpleasant ingredients that make […]

Bush should listen to his inner dad on climate change

We were exploring an unfamiliar pond. My four-year-old daughter was out in the water, up to her knees, when I called her back to shore: “It’s so muddy I can’t see if the pond gets deep quickly,” I said. “And I couldn’t reach you if you fell in. Better safe than sorry.” Parents try to […]

Landslide Brought Them Down

Floods and landslides have rushed down the sides of mountains earlier this week on the Indonesian island of Nias, destroying villages and causing at least 60 deaths. Deforestation may have caused the floods. Indonesia’s largest environmental group, Walhi, found in a study this year that flash floods have occurred exactly where deforestation was worst in […]

Hard Corps

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers yesterday did an about-face and abandoned a plan to change the way it manages the Missouri River, even though it has publicly acknowledged that the current system violates the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has said for years that the river must be returned to […]