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Surplus With a Smile

Al Gore pledged yesterday that if he’s elected president, he will use some of the federal government’s surplus to create a National Energy Security and Environment Trust Fund, which would, among other things, help clean up old, dirty coal-fired power plants. He announced the plan as he kicked off a three-week “progress and prosperity tour,” […]

Profit in the Wilderness

An Australian company, Earth Sanctuaries Ltd., is aiming to turn a profit by protecting land and wildlife. The company, one of the first of its kind in the world, operates three Australian conservation sanctuaries and plans to buy land to create new sanctuaries, likely near Sydney and Melbourne. It intends to make money by attracting […]

Jim Leichter, Aquarius Underwater Laboratory

Jim Leichter is a postdoctoral researcher at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. This is his fourth saturation diving mission at Aquarius, where a team of six aquanauts will spend nine days in the underwater laboratory 63 feet below the ocean’s surface in Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Wednesday, 14 Jun 2000 CONCH REEF, Fla CONCH REEF, […]

Mercury in Retrograde

The Clean Air Network, a coalition of nearly 1,000 enviro groups, called on the U.S. EPA yesterday to require some 600 old, coal-burning power plants to reduce their mercury emissions by 90 percent. The aging plants, which were exempted from most pollution controls under the 1970 Clean Air Act, emit as much as 51 tons […]

Zed, last of his species, in "The Right to Arm Bears"

A Clean Slade?

Conservative Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) has entered into an odd alliance with the Sierra Club to push for higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks. At a press conference last Thursday, Gorton was joined by Sierra Club official Dan Becker and Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) and Richard Bryan (Nev.) in pushing a resolution […]

Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise

The U.S. EPA and the Energy Department summoned executives from the nation’s biggest oil companies to Washington, D.C., yesterday to make them explain why gas prices are rising markedly in the Midwest, all but accusing the companies of price gouging. The EPA doesn’t buy the oil industry’s excuse that prices are as high as $2 […]

Maine Squeeze

Under pressure from a lawsuit filed by enviros, the federal government has agreed to make a decision by Nov. 17 on whether to list Atlantic salmon in Maine rivers as endangered. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been dithering over the question, though Atlantic salmon populations have been in severe decline for years. In […]

Hannah Stewart, Aquarius Underwater Laboratory

Hannah Stewart is the controlled flow environment specialist on the mission at Aquarius, where a team of six aquanauts will spend nine days in the underwater laboratory 63 feet below the ocean’s surface in Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Tuesday, 13 Jun 2000 CONCH REEF, Fla CONCH REEF, Fla. Woke up this morning after feeling […]

Getting Your Goat

Large herds of goats and flocks of sheep are being used in woods and fields across the U.S. to reduce the risk of forest fires and protect native plants by dining on thick brush and invasive species. For example, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection is using sheep to chow through kudzu, an invasive vine, […]