Latest Articles

Bye, Cycles

The bicycle, long emblematic of transportation in China, is gradually fading in popularity as people opt to take taxis and buses around town and dream of cars of their own. Even as its human population expands beyond 1.3 billion, China is experiencing a decline in its bicycle population, from a high of 545.3 million in […]

iSpy

Sony Corp., upset over efforts by enviros to hold electronics manufacturers responsible for the final disposal of their products, may soon be hiring an Internet investigation agency to keep track of activists’ plans and actions. In a leaked Sony paper, the company lists five specific groups that it believes pose a public relations threat: Greenpeace, […]

The Cars Are Stacked Against Us

While a few small cars being sold in U.S. showrooms get 40 or more miles to the gallon, the vast majority of 2001 model year vehicles get about 20 mpg, according to annual fuel economy statistics released yesterday by the U.S. EPA. The popularity of SUVs, pickup trucks, and minivans drove down the mileage figures. […]

Go With the Flow

President Clinton said yesterday that he will veto a big energy and water appropriations package passed by Congress because it contains a rider that would block the administration from implementing a plan to restore a more natural water flow to the upper Missouri River to benefit endangered wildlife. Clinton said the rider would “jeopardize the […]

Too Oily to Tell

A coalition of environmental groups released a report yesterday claiming that Texas’s voluntary program for cutting air pollution from old industrial plants — a centerpiece of Gov. George W. Bush’s environmental record — has been a failure. In the first year of the Bush-backed program, emissions from the plants were cut by only about 0.3 […]

Sulfuring in Silence

A bill to cut the power plant emissions that cause acid rain would save 10,000 lives a year while increasing the average household electricity bill by only $1 per month, according to a report by the U.S. EPA. The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), would reduce nitrogen […]

Of Ice and Men

A 345-square-mile iceberg — 10 times larger than Manhattan — has broken off from Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf, the National Ice Center reported Friday. The Ross Ice Shelf is one of two large ice fields on the continent that have seen increased calving of massive icebergs in recent years, which some scientists suggest could be […]

Stacy Mitchell, Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Stacy Mitchell is a researcher with the New Rules Project of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit organization that provides research, analysis, and innovative policy solutions for building healthy communities and strong, sustainable local economies. She is author of The Home Town Advantage. Monday, 2 Oct 2000 TOLEDO, Ohio I am at the airport, […]

Consumers have the power to fight factory farms

According to the rules of the World Trade Organization, governments cannot block the import of a product on the basis of how it is produced. So what if a rainforest has been cut down or a stream polluted or an animal tortured or workers paid pitiful wages? That’s the concern of the producing country, not […]

Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel — Oh Wait, There Is No Bottom

Radioactive contamination in groundwater may be 400 times higher than the federal standard at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state because high-level nuclear waste was buried 40 years ago in containers that had no bottoms, the U.S. Energy Department said on Friday. The department’s groundwater manager said the contamination will likely reach the Columbia […]