Latest Articles
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This One's Not All Good News, But We're Desperate
Carbon-monoxide levels seem to be steadily decreasing over the eastern U.S., signaling that polices to reduce pollution may be succeeding, according to University of Maryland scientists who published their findings in Geophysical Research Letters. Still, air quality in East Coast cities this summer has ranked among the worst in the 1990s, with levels of ground-level […]
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"Darn," Says Company Oil Spokesperson, "Guess We'll Just Have to Raise Prices."
Democrats won a small victory in the Senate yesterday when they blocked an effort to keep oil companies from having to pay increased royalties when they drill on public land. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) tried to let oil companies off the hook by tacking a rider onto the Interior Department spending bill, but Sen. […]
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Meanwhile, Baca the Ranch …
A 95,000-acre cattle ranch in northern New Mexico, home to one of the largest wild elk herds in the U.S., is poised to become public land under a deal struck yesterday. After two years of negotiations, the feds agreed to buy the scenic Baca Ranch from a Texas family for $101 million and manage it […]
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Fortunately, Most Lithuanians Now Glow in the Dark
Lithuania, the most nuclear-dependent country in the world, announced plans yesterday to decommission by 2005 one of the two Soviet-era nuclear reactors at its Ignalina nuclear power plant. No decisions have been made about how to replace the plant, which currently provides the country with 80 percent of its electricity. The move to shut down […]
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Trickle-Down Oceanographics
Creatures that dwell on the deep ocean floor are suffering from a long-lasting and worsening food shortage, which may be due to increases in the temperature of the ocean’s surface, according to a study of the California coast conducted by researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Last year, a separate Scripps study found a […]
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Meanwhile, GM Proceeds with Plans for New 18-Wheel SUV
An effort to raise fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks may be gaining momentum in the Senate, where Sens. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and Richard Bryan (D-Nev.) are considering offering a non-binding resolution in support of a new government look at the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. For five years in a […]
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Specious Species Spanking Sponsored
Hoping to expedite logging in the Northwest, the Senate voted this morning to exempt the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management from conducting detailed species surveys of land before it can be logged. Sens. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho) sponsored the rider on the Interior Department appropriations bill, while Sen. Charles Robb […]
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Paper Company Voluntarily Does Good Thing
The Westvaco papermaking company today will announce a five-year deal with the Nature Conservancy that will let the environmental group inspect all of the company’s 1.3 million acres of forestland and help designate areas where logging will be restricted. The two parties will agree jointly on a management plan for the land, including the amount […]
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Carcinogens Without Borders
Latin American nations are gradually restricting or banning use of the most dangerous pesticides, but enforcement of rules is lax. For example, in Colombia, the hazardous insecticide endosulfan used in coffee production was prohibited in 1995, but officials say it is still widely used. In Brazil, which has one of the strictest pesticide laws in […]
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Oh, That? It Was an April Fool's Joke on GM
A federal judge ruled yesterday that a website has the right to publish information from confidential Ford documents about the automaker’s efforts to build vehicles that emit far less pollution and have significantly better fuel efficiency than current models. The case is awkward for Ford because the company is now lobbying against tighter emissions and […]
