Latest Articles

He May Not Be Capable of High-level Dialogue

In a letter to President Bush today, European Union leaders write that progress on the Kyoto treaty on climate change is crucial to strong U.S.-European relations and that the president must find the “political courage” to move forward with treaty negotiations. The letter, signed by Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, whose country holds the E.U. […]

Getting Their Just Deserts

A U.S. federal judge approved an agreement on Tuesday between environmentalists and the federal government to expand protections for wildlife on more than 11 million acres of the California Desert Conservation Area. The agreement, which brings an end to a lawsuit filed by three environmental groups, requires the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to close […]

No Nukeskys!

Enviros claimed a victory yesterday as the Russian parliament postponed a vote on allowing imports of spent nuclear fuel into the country for reprocessing. Backers of the measure, including the Russian government and U.S. business interests, say the country would gain a huge revenue source, some $20 billion over the next decade, if it opened […]

Turning Over a NewLeaf

The biotech giant Monsanto confirmed accounts this week that it will shelve its first genetically modified crop and stop selling the six-year-old NewLeaf potato to farmers in the U.S. and Canada. The potato, which contains a gene that produces a toxin to repel the Colorado potato beetle, was unable to capture more than 5 percent […]

Let Them Drink Coke

More than 1 billion people lack access to clean drinking water and 3.4 million die each year from diseases linked to water contamination, according to the World Health Organization. In a report timed for U.N. World Water Day today (mark your calendar for next year), the WHO said it had registered no improvement in the […]

Black Gold, Frank "Incensed" Murkowski

Dealing a blow to plans to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, Republicans on the U.S. House Budget Committee have declined to include any anticipated revenue from the drilling in the federal government budget for the next fiscal year. The chair of the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), […]

Body, Wanna Test My Body, Body

A study released by U.S. health officials yesterday showed for the first time that most Americans carry detectable levels of plastics, pesticides, and heavy metals in their blood and urine. The study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention measured the presence of 27 chemicals in humans and found levels in the average […]

The case for oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Who doesn’t want to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? It’ll be fun! We will wear special outfits, and when the oil gets in our mustaches, we’ll take silly pictures and send them as postcards. The future, now more than ever, is a vast, inky utopia. Babies will squeal with delight and […]

Roadless Travailed

The Bush administration was hoping to have more time to figure out how to roll back rules approved by the Clinton administration to ban road-building and logging on a third of the country’s national forests — but a federal judge threw a kink into that plan yesterday. The judge denied the administration’s plea to delay […]

No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Die

In yet another decision deemed yucky by environmentalists, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is proposing to suspend mining regulations approved by former President Clinton to protect the environment. The rules give the BLM more flexibility to deny mining permits that seem likely to lead to lots of pollution and they require companies that mine […]