Latest Articles

Note to Self: Don't Feed Lead to Kids

Children with levels of lead in their blood that are now considered safe scored significantly lower on intelligence tests than children with almost no lead in their blood, according to a study presented yesterday at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting. Lead author Bruce Lanphear said the research suggested that one in every 30 children […]

First 100 Daze

About 200 protesters from at least 22 environmental groups marched at the White House yesterday, claiming that President Bush had the worst environmental record of any president at the 100-day mark of an administration. In front of the White House gates, they lifted a big sign decorated with a spewing oil well; smaller signs read […]

The Lung and Short of It

More than 140 million Americans live in areas that flunk air-quality tests for ozone pollution, according to a report by the American Lung Association. The number rose 9 million since the group issued a similar report last year, in part due to hot summer conditions that could become par-for-the-course because of global warming. The group […]

That's Why He's Called the "Vice" President

Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday rejected the idea that "we could simply conserve or ration our way out" of what he described as an energy crisis. Instead, he said the U.S. must increase its supply of fossil fuels, open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, and build one new power plant a week […]

Runoff Sentences

Runoff from fertilizers and other nutrient-rich chemicals is posing a major threat to Canada’s water bodies, according to a government report conducted over five years. The report, completed in January 2001 and obtained under public access rules by a private citizen, says farming and municipal sewage systems are the biggest source of the nitrogen- and […]

Daschle, Dancer

U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle (S.D.) last week said he would support dramatic changes in the Kyoto treaty on climate change, including a move away from mandatory to voluntary targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Faced with immediate criticism by environmental groups, however, Daschle on Saturday backed away from his earlier statement and issued […]

Tijuana Gets Brassy

Environmentalists in Mexico are taking lessons from U.S. greenies and are filing more lawsuits and using right-to-know laws to force government agencies to make public the poor environmental records of some companies. Carla Garcia, an enviro attorney in Tijuana, said, “There is a change in the way things are being done. It’s not just about […]

Newt Rockme

The environment “has been the most obvious public relations failure” of the Bush administration so far, but the issue offers President Bush one of his best opportunities to truly change the country, writes former Speaker of the U.S. House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) in the New York Times. Bush could chose to “create the most conservative […]

Survey Says …

Fifty percent of Americans believe that improving the environment should take priority over economic growth, according to a Los Angeles Times poll completed last week. Fifty-eight percent of respondents said protecting plants and animals should trump protection of property rights. Fifty-six percent opposed President Bush’s decision to overturn a rule to reduce arsenic levels in […]

Rant and Rail

Germany’s first shipment of nuclear waste in three years to a British reprocessing plant arrived quietly in the U.K. yesterday, a sharp contrast to the protests that marked the beginning of its five-day journey. Protesters in Germany succeeded briefly in delaying the shipment, and demonstrators in northern France threw smoke bombs on the rail line […]