Latest Articles

Put This in Your Pipeline and Smoke It

Guess what? A survey paid for by oil-happy Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) found that 75 percent of Alaskans support opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. Environmentalists are also confronting another problem — industry says many more pipelines need to be built to boost the amount of natural gas available to […]

Exploratory Committee

The governors of Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming told the U.S. House Resources Committee yesterday that they would welcome more oil, gas, and coal exploration in their states. The committee’s chair, James Hansen (R-Utah), agreed with them that policies discouraging energy exploration on federal lands have contributed to the energy problems facing California and other parts […]

A Dog-Eat-Corn-Dog World

In the first federal bailout related to genetically engineered food, the U.S. Agriculture Department announced yesterday that it will buy as many as 400,000 bags of corn seed that contain the genetically modified (GM) corn variety StarLink. Using up to $20 million in funds normally lent to farmers facing natural disasters, the government will compensate […]

… and the Dammed

Construction of a $3.9 billion dam in Malaysia is expected to resume soon despite harsh criticism from environmentalists and human rights groups. The Asian financial crisis halted work on the Bakun Dam in the late 1990s, but the Malaysian government said this week that it wants to move forward with the project. The dam would […]

The Blessed …

Peter Illyn is a man with a plan — and a llama. He wants to save the environment one soul at a time, following the Christian rock festival circuit and preaching a green gospel. Illyn, with his llama in tow, is one member of a new army of “faith-based” environmentalists crusading to green America’s religious […]

Yachtsee!

Protesters in a flotilla of six yachts in the South Pacific forced a ship carrying spent nuclear fuel from France to Japan to alter its course yesterday. Greenpeace spokesperson Elisabeth Mealey said the flotilla in the Tasman Sea off Australia had achieved victory by forcing the ship to make the effort to avoid them. The […]

The Celebrating Jumping Frog of Riverside County

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service yesterday designated 4.1 million acres as critical habitat for the threatened California red-legged frog. The designation, the state’s largest habitat area for a threatened species, spans 28 counties from Northern California to Riverside County near Los Angeles. It requires landowners seeking federal building permits to prove that that their […]

Something's Always Happening at the Zhu

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji launched the country’s first five-year environmental plan earlier this week, acknowledging the need to balance economic development with environmental concerns. In a speech to China’s parliament, Zhu drew attention to forest preservation, desertification, and water shortages. About 400 of China’s 668 cities suffer water shortages, and some 700 million of China’s […]

Money Doesn't Grow on Logs, You Know

The feds lost $126 million from logging on national forests in 1998, according to a draft report released yesterday by the U.S. Forest Service. The agency spent $672 million to administer timber sales that generated only $546 million in revenue. The Tongass National Forest in Alaska led the list of money losers: It cost $35.6 […]

Flutter, Bye

Loggers in Mexico may have poisoned 22 million monarch butterflies in an attempt to gain access to protected forestland, says Homero Aridjis, head of the Mexican environmental organization Group of 100. Aridjis said the butterflies, which migrate each winter from Canada to fir forests in the Michoacan state of central Mexico, were found dead on […]