Latest Articles

Pop Goes the Diesel

In the latest step in its crackdown on dirty diesel vehicles, the U.S. EPA yesterday issued a final rule that will require new diesel truck and bus engines to emit 40 percent less pollution by 2004. Later this year, the EPA intends to issue a rule that will mandate even cleaner engines by 2007 and […]

Wild Thing, I Think I'll Eat You

Afflicted by poverty and drought, millions of people in East and Southern Africa are increasingly hunting and eating wild animals and in the process endangering several hundred species, according to a report released yesterday by TRAFFIC, an international wildlife monitoring program. With the decline in numbers of traditional game species like buffalo, hunters are now […]

Skinnama-minke Minke Dink, Skinnama-minke Doo, I Love You

Norway announced yesterday that it is extending its controversial whaling season for another month because hunters have not yet filled the year’s quota of 655 minke whales. Norway conducts commercial hunts in defiance of a moratorium by the International Whaling Commission. Johan Williams of the nation’s Fisheries Ministry dismissed the possibility that failure to reach […]

General Excitement?

General Motors Corp. announced today that within a few years it will begin producing fuel-efficient, hybrid gas-electric versions of its full-size pickup trucks and city buses, just days after Ford announced its intention to boost the fuel economy of its SUVs by 25 percent over the next five years. GM Vice Chair Harry Pearce said […]

Cheney on the Brainy

The Democratic Party has unveiled new TV commercials that lambaste the environmental records of George W. Bush and his running mate Dick Cheney, just in time for the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. One ad shows an image of Texas with pollution spewing from the top of the state as if from a smokestack. The […]

Space Invaders

A number of scientists are warning that the spread of invasive species could become the next big environmental crisis. Some of the invasives are brought into non-native areas deliberately, but most are imported accidentally, particularly as global trade increases. Once the species get established in places where they have no natural predators, they can spread […]

Shape Up or Ship Out

The cruise ship industry has been hit with bad press lately for some high-profile pollution cases involving the illegal dumping of oil-contaminated water and other pollution into the channels and bays along Alaska’s southeast coastal rainforest. These incidents have raised awareness that current law allows cruise ships to dump wastewater and treated sewage virtually anywhere. […]

A Gab Fest

Gabon’s government reached an agreement last month with the country’s major logging companies and an assortment of environmental groups to permanently protect a 1,900-square-mile tropical rainforest reserve rich with large mammals and other wildlife. The Lope Reserve has also been nominated to become the first national park in the West African nation. The agreement involves […]

Smells Fishy

Even low levels of common pesticides can disturb the ability of salmon to smell, possibly reducing their chances of survival, according to research by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Salmon rely heavily on smell to help determine friends, even mates, from foes, and it may be the primary sense the fish use to navigate back […]

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (known familiarly as CJD) is something you do not want to get. Your brain degenerates, piece by piece. First you feel depressed, then you have trouble coordinating. You lose sight, speech, motor control, as the disease travels through the brain. When it reaches the control centers for breathing or heartbeat, you die. Medical […]