Latest Articles
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Polar Vault
After years of negotiating, the U.S. and Russia are signing an agreement today to protect polar bears in northeastern Siberia and Alaska. There are an estimated 3,000 polar bears in the region — and that number has been growing — but enviros have been fearful that the total could decline because ice cover has been […]
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Radioactive-free Europe
About 1,000 demonstrators protested yesterday outside a German nuclear power plant that hopes to ship its radioactive waste to France sometime soon. The German government recently lifted a two-year ban on such shipments, which had been imposed after it became clear that past shipments were leaking radiation well above permitted levels. The demonstration occurred even […]
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Swing State, Sweet Chariots
Texas Gov. George W. Bush traveled to the swing state of Michigan on Friday to attack Al Gore as an enemy of the automobile whose focus on the environment would damage the economy. Bush noted that the vice president cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate in 1993 to raise gasoline taxes and quoted from […]
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Leaps and Boundaries
In what would be the first major effort to confront transboundary air pollution since an agreement on acid rain pollution in the 1980s, the U.S. and Canada have drafted a smog-reduction plan for the next decade. Under it, the U.S. would reduce its nitrogen oxide emissions by 36 percent by 2010, while Canada would drop […]
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Don't Mess With the Missionary Brand
Keeping track of where genetically modified crops end up is proving to be more difficult than U.S. regulators had anticipated. Exhibit A is the ongoing controversy over food products found to illegally contain StarLink corn, a modified variety not approved for human consumption. In addition to recent recalls of two brands of taco shells, the […]
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Burning Rubber
6.5 million — number of tires recalled this year by Bridgestone/Firestone 270 million — number of scrap tires generated in the U.S. in 1998 500 million — number of scrap tires currently in U.S. stockpiles 35 — number of U.S. states that ban whole tires from landfills 59 — number of tire fires in the […]
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Loan Wolf
In what could be a precedent-setting move, enviros are suing the U.S. Small Business Administration for aggravating sprawl in the Washington, D.C., area. The Forest Conservation Council and Friends of the Earth say that at least 30 percent of SBA loans in the region over the past three years have financed new construction, much of […]
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You Don't Have to Be a Starlink, Baby, to Be in My Show
The U.S. EPA moved yesterday to revoke approval for a variety of genetically modified corn that has illegally made its way into two brands of taco shells, prompting nationwide recalls. The Starlink corn, manufactured by Aventis, had been licensed for use as livestock feed but banned from human food because of concerns that it could […]
