Latest Articles

A Colorado family welcomes the simple life

Why would Dale Murphy, a senior geologist with Enserch Exploration, leave a $58,000-a-year job in Dallas and take his family to a remote town in Colorado where the employment opportunities range from sorting cherries to working a supermarket cash register? The Murphy family, home on the range. Photo: Lisa Jones. Sanity. He and his wife […]

Bringing Us to Our Ruins

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt suggested yesterday that he will recommend that President Clinton create two more national monuments — one at Soda Mountain in southern Oregon and another at a southwestern Colorado area containing Indian ruins. Under the 1906 Antiquities Act, a president can designate national monuments without congressional approval. Clinton has created five monuments […]

Making Money Hanford Over Fist?

The contractor charged with cleaning up the most dangerous waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state said yesterday that the cost would likely be $15.2 billion, up from an estimate of $13 billion earlier this month, which was up from an original estimate of $6.9 billion. British Nuclear Fuels, the contractor, admitted that […]

There's Gold in Them There Geysers

In a ruling that could give a boost to “bioprospecting,” a federal judge this month upheld a precedent-setting agreement under which a biotechnology company will pay Yellowstone National Park for the right to search its geysers and hot springs for commercially valuable microbes. Some enviros and biotech critics had filed suit to stop the deal, […]

Meeting Around the Bush?

Organizers may cancel a controversial meeting scheduled for Detroit this Thursday, at which a number of state environmental officials and industry representatives were set to discuss ways that federal environmental regulations could be loosened if George W. Bush wins the presidency. Since news of the gathering was leaked to the press last week, a number […]

Babe in Harms

Many children in farming communities are exposed to higher levels of pesticides than federal regulators consider safe, according to a new study conducted by scientists at the University of Washington, to be published in the June issue of Environmental Health Perspectives. More than half of the preschool children tested showed signs of having been exposed […]

Elvish Still Gyrating

Craig Rosebraugh, who periodically acts as a spokesperson for the radical Earth Liberation Front (ELF), has been called to appear before a federal grand jury on Wednesday. Activists who claim connection to ELF have committed a number of acts of eco-sabotage in recent years, including burning down a headquarters building of the Boise Cascade logging […]

You Say It's Your Earth Day — It's My Earth Day Too, Yeah

Millions of people in 183 countries celebrated the 30th anniversary of Earth Day on Saturday, with rallies, marches, demonstrations, car-free days, and fairs, many of them focused on the theme of clean energy and global warming. At the flagship Earth Day event in Washington, D.C., hundreds of thousands came out to hear speeches from politicians, […]

Business as Unusual

Student environmental activists are turning their attention anew to corporations, trying to cajole or shame them into changing their practices for the benefit of the planet. Last month, Yale student Glenn Hurowitz staged a demonstration at BP Amoco’s New York offices and delivered a stack of resumes from business and engineering students who had pledged […]

We Doesn't Get It

Pollution and other environmental factors may be threatening the intelligence of millions of people around the world, according to a new research review conducted by Chris Williams of London University. Environmental problems that can lead to lower IQs include lead, PCBs, and radiation. Epidemiologists have detected an increase in the number of children born with […]