Latest Articles
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The Spirit of 84
America’s fourth largest lumber retailer, 84 Lumber, pledged yesterday that by 2003 it will phase out all wood from forests considered endangered and sell only wood independently certified as coming from sustainably managed forests. With this move, 84 Lumber, which has more than 400 stores in 30 states, follows the lead of the top two […]
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Puppety Love
Tame offspring and unsafe food sources could spell trouble for the effort to restore the California condor in the West, says a new study published in the journal Conservation Biology. Since the feds rounded up the last 27 wild condors in the 1980s and began a captive breeding program, most eggs have been removed from […]
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Clinton Rules
On the chance that Gov. George W. Bush may become president next January, the Clinton administration is burning the midnight oil to complete a bundle of new regulations backed by environmentalists and other liberal groups and opposed by business interests. At the U.S. EPA alone, 67 regulatory decisions are on tap, including ones relating to […]
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One class of chemicals is causing a cacophony of environmental problems
To the average observer, environmental crises may seem to pop up as randomly as Starbucks franchises. Every so often, worries about a substance such as DDT or dioxin surface and, after a public outcry and tireless campaigning by environmental groups, some action is taken. In his powerful new book Pandora's Poison, Joe Thornton makes the point that many of the environmental problems that have come to light in the past 40 years are not isolated from each other at all but rather have been caused by just one class of chemicals: organochlorines.
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Born in the Sign of Cancer
Exposure to toxic chemicals in food, water, and air may be leading to a dramatic surge in childhood cancers, asthma, and sudden infant death syndrome in Canadian children, according to a report released earlier this week. For example, the report by the Canadian Institute of Child Health found that childhood cancers have increased by 25 […]
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Fine, Dandy
Chevron yesterday agreed to pay a record $7 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the feds, which claimed that the oil giant had violated the Clean Air Act at an offshore oil terminal near El Segundo, Calif. The company will pay a $6 million fine, the highest ever for a single facility, make $500,000 […]
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L.A.-L.A.-Pollutza
Los Angeles is outpacing Houston in the race for the title of America’s smoggiest city. So far this year, L.A. has had 34 days when ozone in the air exceeded national standards, compared to Houston’s 26 days. Still, the worst air pollution in Houston has been dirtier than the worst in L.A., with a high […]
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Welcome Back, Carter
Former President Carter said yesterday that President Clinton should designate the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a national monument “without further delay,” shielding it from the threat of oil and gas drilling. Carter said he would personally talk with Clinton about protecting the 1.5 million-acre coastline in Alaska, and he urged environmentalists […]
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Commission: Possible
The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, the state’s top environmental body, acknowledged yesterday that global warming may pose threats to the state and said it would explore ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The move by the commission, headed by three appointees of Gov. George W. Bush, came a month after environmental groups filed a […]
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See Spot Live
The World Bank, Conservation International, and the Global Environment Facility joined together yesterday to unveil a new $150 million fund aimed at preserving biodiversity by protecting “hot spots,” or threatened areas with heavy concentrations of plant and animal species. The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, as the project has been dubbed, will help create new national […]
