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  • Orangu-tanking

    The orangutan population in the forests of Indonesian Borneo has dropped by about 30 percent to as few as 15,000, the state Antara news agency said. The main cause of recent declines was a rash of forest fires in 1997, which destroyed 1.3 million acres of forest, according to Nita Bustani, head of the Semboja […]

  • Playing Chicken in Kiev

    Ukraine plans this year to shut down the Chernobyl nuclear plant, site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, Ukranian Pres. Leonid Kuchma said Saturday. But Kuchma told U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who was in Ukraine for a two-day visit, that the plant will close only after the U.S. and other industrialized nations hammer out […]

  • Chevy Suburban Cowboys

    Texas, which is plagued by dirty air, is considering adopting California’s strict vehicle pollution rules as early as this spring. The shift, one of a number of options being considered to satisfy a federal cleanup order, could help Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R) dodge criticism for his lax environmental approach in the presidential campaign. […]

  • Quit Hogging!

    A group of Mississippi farmers and enviros are pushing forward with a $75 million class-action lawsuit against big hog producers for releasing pollutants that have made dozens of people sick. The suit, filed against Prestage Farms and several of its subcontractors, would compensate 160 families that live near hog farms, processing plants, and meat packers. […]

  • McCain Is on the Money

    I’ve had the fun of voting in six New Hampshire primaries, but this one I had to sit out. I’ve just moved three miles across the river and become a Vermonter. It was strange to watch all the foofuraw from across the state boundary. I still bumped into the candidates as they cruised the valley, […]

  • UPS, UPS, and Away

    A wide range of businesses are improving their environmental performance beyond what government regulations require and are finding that doing so boosts their images and saves them money. United Parcel Service has developed a reusable delivery envelope and increased its use of recycled materials, moves that are cutting energy consumption and solid waste, saving 2,200 […]

  • Take Back the Knight Rider

    Automakers that sell vehicles in European Union countries would have to take back old cars and pay most of the cost for recycling and disposing of them under a bill approved by the European Parliament yesterday. Manufacturers would have to start recycling 80 percent of the weight of cars by 2006 and 85 percent by […]

  • Petro-fying News

    Enviros and Amazon natives fear that oil drilling in Ecuador may soon escalate dramatically. Ecuador last month replaced the national currency with the U.S. dollar in an attempt to pull the country out of an economic crisis, and that means the economy will need a big injection of dollars, which the government may try to […]

  • Hot Dam

    Fishing guides, Indian tribes, biologists, and environmentalists showed up in force at a public hearing yesterday in Portland, Ore., to tell federal authorities that they want four dams on the lower Snake River in southeastern Washington to be breached to save salmon runs from extinction. A caravan of about 80 trucks hauling fishing boats and […]