Latest Articles
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Man Oh Manatee
Manatees in Florida’s waters are dying at a record rate, causing concern that the state’s small population of the marine mammals may be in trouble. One hundred manatees died in the first three months of this year, including 32 killed by powerboats, compared with 80 total deaths during the same period in 1999. In other […]
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Juvenile Delinquents Eat Lead
Millions more children than earlier thought might have mental impairments linked to lead poisoning, a finding that suggests that the federal government’s current recommendation for acceptable blood-lead levels is much too high, according to a study presented yesterday in Boston at a joint conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics and Pediatric Academic Societies. In […]
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Grazing Cain
In a sweeping decision that affects more than 150 million acres in the western and central U.S., the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the Clinton administration did not violate the law in 1995 when it imposed stricter environmental regulations on the grazing of cattle and sheep on federal land. The unanimous ruling, a big victory […]
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We Be Culture Jammin'
Maybe you’ve seen Adbusters magazine or the Adbusters website, with their takeoffs on common ads. “Joe Chemo,” the popular Joe Camel, sits sad, sick, and bald in a hospital bed. A sports utility vehicle surges through the wilderness under the slogan: NATURE — IT’LL GROW BACK. A slumped over vodka bottle proclaims ABSOLUTE IMPOTENCE. It […]
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Onward Christian Soldiers
Climate-related disasters in poor nations are caused by greenhouse-gas emissions from wealthy nations and should no longer be termed “natural disasters,” argues the UK organization Christian Aid in a report released today. These catastrophes, which are becoming more and more frequent thanks to global warming, kill thousands of people and cost billions of dollars. “Nine […]
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Turning Over a New Reef
The world’s coral reefs made a partial rebound in 1999 after a bad year in 1998, but they are still threatened by climate change and overfishing, according to the group Reef Check. In 1998, scientists estimated that 15 percent of the world’s reefs had died off, a trend abetted by that year’s record-breaking ocean temperatures, […]
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The Firm
The text of a bill being pushed by Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) that would weaken regulation of pesticides is almost a word-for-word duplicate of a draft written by a consulting firm working for a coalition of pesticide manufacturers, agricultural organizations, and food processors. A landmark 1996 law set a new, stringent safety standard for using […]
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Following Suits
Friends of the Earth and other enviro groups are moving forward with a lawsuit arguing that the U.S. Forest Service has violated laws that require it to consider the full costs of logging on national forests, including the financial impacts on tourism, watershed protection, and wildlife. The groups filed the case in 1998, seeking to […]
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Salmon Day, My Prince Will Come
During a campaign swing through Portland, Ore., Vice President Al Gore on Friday said that as president he would use hard science to quickly resolve the controversy over how to restore salmon runs in the Northwest, but he avoided taking a stance on whether four dams on the Snake River in Washington state should be […]
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Look on Seabright Side
Jeff Seabright, executive director of the White House Task Force on Climate Change, is bailing out in the waning days of the Clinton administration for a plum job in the private sector, namely as vice president for policy planning at Texaco. Muckraker had been hearing rumblings of the imminent departure for a week, but couldn’t […]
