Latest Articles

Country Mouse, City Moose

Within five years, more people in the world will live in cities than in rural areas, a shift that will have big implications for the environment, according to a new study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Richard Blackburn, one of the study authors, said policy makers might do well to focus […]

Peaking Ducks?

More than 320 Asian bird species are at risk of extinction because of habitat loss, says the conservation group BirdLife International. Deforestation and wetlands loss have caused the number to take a huge jump from 1981, when only 51 species faced extinction. The groups says that out of 2,700 Asian bird species, 664 are confronting […]

Critical Masses

Criticism of President Bush’s Rose Garden speech on global warming hasn’t been hard to come by. Margot Wallstrom, the European Union’s environment commissioner, said in a statement today that Bush’s speech was “short on action.” Canadian leaders agreed. Climate scientists took issue with the idea that any actions to curb global warming should wait until […]

Research and Destroy

Before departing for Europe yesterday, President Bush gave his first speech devoted to global warming, promising to begin a program to research the problem more thoroughly but giving little indication of policies he would recommend to bring down greenhouse gas emissions. He said the Kyoto treaty on climate change was “fatally flawed in fundamental ways,” […]

Heart and Souls

An individual’s risk of heart attack is 62 percent greater on days with the worst air pollution, according to a study of 772 heart attack victims in Greater Boston published today in the journal of the American Hearth Association. The study by researchers at the Beth Israel Deaconess, the Harvard School of Public Health, and […]

No Sale

Environmentalists agree with the U.S. Forest Service that four timber sales planned along Eagle Creek in the Mount Hood National Forest in Oregon are some of the best sales ever designed — they target no old-growth timber, avoid clear-cutting, and require little road-building. So why have enviros staged two years of protests against the sales? […]

Condor Gnashed

In an effort to boost her green credentials, U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton is fond of talking about the success of the program to reintroduce captive-bred California condors into the wild. But scientists aren’t so sure the program is a success. Reintroduced birds are being threatened by their old nemesis: lead from bullets. Four birds […]

Everybody Expects the Spanish Inquisition

In anticipation of U.S. President Bush’s visit to Madrid tomorrow, thousands of Spaniards marched through the city yesterday to protest Bush’s decision to withdraw from the Kyoto treaty on climate change and numerous other White House policies. Greenpeace activists boarded an oil tanker off the coast of France yesterday and hung a huge banner on […]

Deutsch Treat

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder and representatives from leading utilities are expected to sign an agreement today to phase out nuclear power within 25 years. The government has taken steps to ensure that the country’s greenhouse gas emissions decline, even as nuclear power is taken away from the electricity grid. It wants renewable energy to account […]

Soy Triste

Despite consumer concerns about genetically engineered food, especially in Europe and Japan, the biotech industry believes it has nearly won the battle to make the foods ubiquitous. The U.S., Brazil, and Argentina account for about 90 percent of the world’s corn and soybean exports, and the U.S. and Argentina now ship mostly genetically engineered varieties. […]