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I'll Take the Lowe Road

Lowe’s Cos., the second-largest home-improvement retailer in the U.S., announced today that it plans to phase out wood products that come from “endangered forests,” starting with an immediate ban on the purchase of wood from the Great Bear Rainforest region of British Columbia. The company’s pledge follows a similar one made last year by Home […]

Joe Cool

Al Gore yesterday chose as his running mate Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), a strong environmental advocate who has earned a 95 percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters over the course of his Senate career. Lieberman cosponsored the 1990 Clean Air Act; introduced legislation in 1991 to give citizens more information about pesticide dangers; […]

DOE, Oh Dear

More than two-thirds of the 144 sites related to nuclear weapons production in the U.S. will never be clean enough to allow for unrestricted public use, according to a report conducted by the National Research Council at the request of the Department of Energy. The report also found that the government’s long-term management plans for […]

Notes From the Underground

In violation of a 1998 federal deadline, state and local governments are continuing to operate thousands of old underground fuel tanks that may be leaking chemicals into water supplies. Leaking fuel tanks are the No. 1 cause of groundwater pollution in the country, tainting wells and aquifers. Private industry, leery of fines and bad publicity, […]

Do You Sea What I Sea?

Standing at a scenic spot along the Massachusetts shore yesterday, President Clinton signed into law a bipartisan bill intended to protect the nation’s oceans and coastal areas. The law will establish a 16-member commission to study ocean issues and recommend a long-term strategy for protecting marine resources, restoring fish and marine mammal populations, strengthening coastal […]

Johnny-Come-Too-Lately

ABC News admitted yesterday that a “20/20” report by John Stossel criticizing organic produce contained inaccurate information and said the reporter would apologize on the air this Friday for his error. The report, first aired in February and then rerun in July over the objection of enviros and organic advocates, claimed that tests conducted for […]

Elizabeth May, Sierra Club of Canada

Elizabeth May is the executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada and a lifelong environmental activist. She is also a lawyer, educator, writer, and mother. Her most recent book, coauthored with fellow Canadian activist Maude Barlow, is Frederick Street: Life and Death on Canada’s Love Canal. Monday, 7 Aug 2000 OTTAWA, Ontario Today, being […]

Your Friends and Nader's

Right on, Ralph. The complaints continue to pour in: “Why are you writing columns supporting Ralph Nader? How can you actively aid and abet the election of that dolt Bush? You can think better than that.” And so does the applause: “I believe that you will never regret voting on the basis of your conscience, […]

All We Are Saying Is Give Greenpeace a Chance

Hoping to rebound after several years of internal troubles, Greenpeace USA has found a new executive director: John Passacantando, cofounder and head of Ozone Action. Passacantando hopes to merge the two organizations, a proposal the groups’ boards are considering. The organizations are now quite different: Greenpeace USA has about 300,000 members (down from a million […]

Prosthetics That Don't Cost an Arm and a Leg

An innovative recycling effort in Thailand is converting used plastic bottles and aluminum cans into prosthetic limbs for people who have been maimed by land mines. The program was launched by the Prosthesis Foundation of Thailand, which has a mission of providing free artificial limbs to every poor land mine victim in the nation. When […]