Latest Articles
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We're Gonna Rock Down to Electric Avenue
Against automakers’ objections, the California Air Resources Board on Friday voted unanimously to stick with a rule requiring that 10 percent of the cars offered for sale in the state in 2003 emit little or no pollution. CARB estimates that the rule will prompt automakers to put 22,000 electric vehicles (EVs) on the market in […]
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Into Thinner Air
The ozone hole over Antarctica is the biggest it’s ever been, 11 million square miles, or three times the size of the U.S., scientists at NASA said on Friday. Synthetic compounds in refrigerants, aerosol sprays, and foam-blowing agents cause depletion of the ozone layer. The amount of such chemicals in the atmosphere is leveling off, […]
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Underbrush With the Law
President Clinton on Saturday endorsed a report by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman calling for a big increase in the number of national forest acres to be swept clean of the thick, flammable underbrush that led to many of the wildfires in the West this summer. Clinton’s comments came during his […]
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Go Ahead and Jump
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Friday proposed designating 5.4 million acres as critical habitat for the threatened California red-legged frog, a move likely to affect development and agriculture in the state, particularly in Southern California. This designation, which would be the largest of its kind in the state and one of the largest […]
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Wild and Crazy Guy
U.S. Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck this weekend said his agency should be leading the effort to protect what’s left of wild spaces and that he would increase the number of people on his payroll working on wilderness issues. Speaking at a national wilderness conference in Denver, Dombeck said, “Five percent of our land area […]
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Development runs wild in the upper Midwest
In an arm-wrestling contest, you’d probably pick Paul Bunyan over John Lawlis. Bunyan, after all, wielded his mighty ax with mythic strength and endurance, leveling the great forests of the upper Midwest. John Lawlis merely works the phones, selling vacation lots in what’s left of these woods. “I think Paul would definitely win,” laughs Lawlis. […]
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Give Greenpeace a Chance
By now the trials and tribulations that have befallen Greenpeace USA in recent years are well-known. In the biggest blowup, the entire board resigned after bickering with Greenpeace International-backed Executive Director Kristen Engberg over the direction and organization of the redoubtable environmental group. Current and former staffers ranted about Engberg’s leadership style, which they described […]
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No Kenya Do
Community leaders in Kwale, Kenya, are deeply troubled by a Canadian mining company’s plans to turn thousands of acres of forest and farmland on Kenya’s eastern coast into a $150 million titanium strip mine. Opponents of the massive mining project charge that it is fraught with corruption and would devastate a fragile ecosystem, as well […]
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Thaw Shucks
Adding weight to arguments that global warming is upon us, a study appearing today in the journal Science concludes that 26 bodies of water in the Northern Hemisphere are freezing an average of 8.7 days later and thawing out 9.8 days earlier than they did 150 years ago. The study was a based on direct […]
