Latest Articles

Finding Forester (For Now)

The world’s forests are continuing to shrink, but at a slower rate than five years ago, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said yesterday. Since 1995, the world has lost 22 million acres of forest per year, a figure 20 percent lower than the previous five years. Forests are disappearing most rapidly in Africa and […]

Ford, Lincoln, Mercury

American automakers haven’t kept promises to eliminate mercury from new cars, according to two different reports by environmental groups. In 1995, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler pledged to phase out the use of mercury in electrical switches and lighting. In 2000, however, General Motors and Ford sold vehicles containing 6 million to 9 million mercury […]

Bare Naked Ladies

Six bare-breasted women — one astride a horse, a la Lady Godiva — and 30 fully clothed people protested in Vancouver, B.C., yesterday over a company’s plan to log old growth on Salt Spring Island. The protesters stopped traffic for more than an hour at the headquarters of the company, Texada Land Corp., and drew […]

Who Stole the Cookie From the Cookie Jar? I Did! Me! Me!

President Bush and the folks he plans to bring with him into office — Gale Norton at Interior, Christine Todd Whitman at U.S. EPA, et al — are big fans of letting industry police itself on environmental regulations, rather than relying on government crackdowns to reduce pollution. The idea behind “self-auditing” is that it does […]

Navajo pageant winner is an enviro star

Outfitted in moccasins and traditional dresses, the four contestants in the 49th Miss Navajo Nation Pageant — held this past September in Window Rock, Ariz. — demonstrated a dazzling array of cultural skills. They discussed, in Navajo, the Treaty of 1868. They carded and spun wool, and they displayed rugs they had woven. They prepared […]

Skating on Thin, Contaminated Ice

Efforts to protect water resources and treat drinking water properly are flunking in many parts of Canada, says a report by the Sierra Legal Defense Fund in Canada. Five of the country’s 13 provinces and territories received Ds for their water protection rules, and one — Newfoundland — received an F. Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec […]

A Sandy Dunkin'

Sand dunes are already within 60 miles of Beijing and are moving forward as quickly as 15 miles a year, threatening the city with major sandstorms and much worse in upcoming years. Last year, sandstorms hospitalized many residents with respiratory problems and cost the city millions of dollars in damages. More than a quarter of […]

More Proof That There's No Difference Between Gore and Bush

Less than two hours after taking office, President Bush acted on Saturday to delay or block the Clinton administration’s final initiatives, including many environmental rules. Bush’s executive order put a 60-day stay on regulations that have been published in the Federal Registry but haven’t yet taken effect. Bush has expressed particular unhappiness with the Clinton […]

The Tortoise and the Scare

An Ecuadorean oil tanker that ran aground about 550 yards off one of the Galapagos Islands began spilling oil on Friday, posing a major threat to the rare bird and marine life in the area. About 150,000 gallons of diesel fuel have already escaped from the 240,000-gallon tanker, creating an oil slick of at least […]

2100: A Heat Odyssey

By 2100, the average world temperature could rise between 2.5 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a report released today in Shanghai by the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This estimate is significantly higher than the 1.8- to 6.3-degree rise predicted by the IPCC in 1995. The Shanghai report, the third such assessment by […]