Latest Articles

Infertile Crescent

The largest wetland in the Middle East has shrunk by 90 percent since 1970, a change that has had a “devastating” impact on humans and wildlife, says the U.N. Environment Programme in a report to be released later this year. The UNEP says that dams and drainage projects have been the two main causes of […]

All We Are Is Soot in the Wind

A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., yesterday sided mostly with the U.S. EPA and backed an order forcing factories and power plants in the Midwest and the South to reduce their emissions. Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania petitioned the EPA in 1997 to order hundreds of polluters in upwind states to cut their […]

Assault and Paper

In a move that could put U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman in the hot seat again, a scientific advisory committee to the EPA voted unanimously yesterday to send on a long-delayed report to the agency that concludes that dioxin should be more tightly regulated. The committee found that dioxin is an air pollutant that […]

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Reboot

At long last, electronics recycling in the U.S. is beginning to take off. In May 1999, only about 15 percent of used computers, TVs, VCRs, and the like were being recycled, but the figure may now be as high as 25 percent, says Peter Muscanelli, president of the International Association of Electronics Recyclers. Unlike in […]

The Return of Nothin' Brazil

The amount of logging in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil has risen to the highest level since 1995, provoking the country’s government to renew its pledges to reduce deforestation. Last year, 7,659 square miles of forest — an area about the size of Belgium — were lost to logging. Mary Allegretti, the government’s official who […]

That '70s Show

President Bush draws the curtain on the administration’s energy policy tomorrow, but there’s not much anxious anticipation. This remarkably non-leaky White House has done a pretty good job drib-drabbing out the whole policy, so much so that you’ll be forgiven if you feel you’ve read the same story about what’s in the plan 10 different […]

That's About the Seize of It

President Bush’s energy plan is expected to recommend that the federal government be allowed to use eminent-domain authority to seize private property for electric transmission lines. Guess who isn’t very excited about this idea? It’s your old anti-enviro buddies — Mr. and Mrs. Western Republican Leader and their friends, the property-rights movement. The amount of […]

Diddly-squat

Kenyans have been clashing over the future of 167,000 acres of forestland around Mount Kenya since the government announced in February that it would clear the land so that landless farmers could live there. The acreage represents about 7 percent of the country’s total remaining forest cover. Environmentalists in the Green Belt Movement say that’s […]

The Fountain Airheads

Many customers of Southern California Edison are dutifully honoring the company’s request to dim the lights and conserve electricity, but not the folks at the international headquarters of the Ayn Rand Institute. Yaron Brook, the executive director of the group, which is dedicated to promoting Rand’s theories of individualism, said, "Expecting the American people to […]

America Last?

Although President Bush has proven to be a pushover on the issue, a bunch of multinational companies are working (albeit, slowly) to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Why? Japan and Europe have kept up the pressure on companies to act; energy costs are rising, so efficiency saves money; and some of the companies want to […]