Latest Articles

Trash Talking

The first piece of legislation signed by Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo requires local governments to reduce waste disposal by 25 percent across the county in five years, mostly through re-use, recycling, and composting. Macapagal, who came into office the same day as U.S. President Bush, said, “I am told no other country in the world […]

Up Sheet Creek

The middle of the West Antarctic ice sheet — one of the world’s largest collections of water — is shrinking and could contribute to a dramatic rise in global sea levels, according to a study published in the journal Science. The researchers found that part of the ice sheet, the Pine Island Glacier, thinned by […]

Aaaay, It's the Fronds!

A common fern can thrive on big amounts of arsenic and could possibly be put to use soaking up arsenic from contaminated land and water, according to a study published today in the journal Nature. The fern, a nonnative plant that grows in the Southeastern U.S. and California, is the first known plant to do […]

Fund-amentals

Enviros are taking on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to enforce rules that require companies to disclose what it could cost them to make sure they don’t mess up the environment. Calvert Funds, a socially responsible investment firm, and the nonprofit World Resources Institute say that investors aren’t being given enough information […]

McChicken Sandwiched

Stung by a backlash from some farmers and consumers, Monsanto has been saying recently that it pursued the wrong course in trying to win market approval of genetically engineered foods without addressing concerns that the foods might pose risks to human health and the environment. Listen in on Monsanto CEO Hendrik Verfaille: "We tried to […]

O-oh, He's a Little Runway

The Bush administration wants to speed construction of more runways at major airports in the U.S. by streamlining reviews of their environmental impacts. The Federal Aviation Administration has done an about-face and now argues that more runways offer a quicker solution to airport gridlock than updating air-traffic-control computers. But the current process of obtaining federal […]

Do the Hustle

U.S. companies are hustling down to Mexico to build power plants to supply energy-starved California, and Mexican environmentalists aren’t happy about it. Mexican officials and the power companies say that the economic benefits of the new plants will outweigh the pollution they add to the air. Alejandro Calvillo, director of Greenpeace Mexico, counters that the […]

Dammed If You Do, Damned If You Don't

Nearly 500 dams in the U.S. have been taken down over the past 15 years, opening up fish runs and flushing out rivers. Campaigns to remove large-scale dams in the West garner most of the media attention, but Steve Higgs of American Rivers says more progress is being made knocking down smaller dams in the […]

Crack Pipe Epidemic

Betcha never knew that the U.S.’s system of water and sewage pipes and treatment plants is decaying and little money has been set aside to repair it. A-ha! Well, listen up. A report by the U.S. EPA concludes that the country will face a $23 billion shortfall each year for infrastructure needs by 2020. Ken […]

What Nerve!

Environmental groups and a commercial fishers group in the Northwest sued the U.S. EPA yesterday to protect salmon from small amounts of pesticides often found in rivers. The plaintiffs want the agency to review how pesticides might be harming the fish and to place tougher restrictions on pesticide use until the review is complete. Studies […]