Latest Articles
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No Fences Make Good Neighbors
The neighboring nations of Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe yesterday agreed to create a transborder conservation area with the aim of protecting biodiversity and promoting socioeconomic development in the region. The new Transfrontier Conservation Areas will pool the management of Mozambique’s Gaza Park, South Africa’s Kruger National Park, and Zimbabwe’s Gonarezhou Park. The agreement, signed […]
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Trick or Treaty?
Dissension is likely to dominate the two weeks of international negotiations on climate change that are getting underway today in Bonn, Germany. The U.S. and Europe will likely butt heads over emissions trading, which the U.S. wants to use extensively but Europe wants to limit as industrial nations work to meet commitments made in the […]
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Told You So
The economy in the Northwest didn’t go into a tailspin after the feds curtailed logging in the early 1990s to protect old-growth forests and the northern spotted owl, according to a new report by three Oregon economists from ECONorthwest, an economic consulting company. Rather, the economy seems to have performed better, in part because forest […]
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Can't Bear the Thought
Tension is rising in British Columbia as timber companies begin to log what many call the Great Bear Rain Forest along Canada’s western coast, a vast, largely undisturbed old-growth area comprising one quarter of the world’s remaining temperate rainforest. Arguing that the economy needed a boost, the British Columbia government recently slashed logging royalties to […]
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Girl, You'll Be a Woman Sooner
A chemical used in everything from baby bottles to tin can linings seems to have caused premature puberty and increased body weight in female mice, according to new research published in the journal Nature. The chemical, bisphenol A, is thought to be an endocrine disrupter, which can upset hormone systems in humans and other animals. […]
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Don't or Die
Polluting scofflaws in the United Arab Emirates could get the death penalty under a new law issued by Pres. Sheikh Zaid bin Sultan al-Nahayan. The law also allows for fines of up to $2.7 million for those who import, store, or dump nuclear wastes or other banned materials. The United Arab Emirates and other Arab […]
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Gene Cuisine
Responding to Europeans’ fears about genetically modified foods, the European Union yesterday gave preliminary approval to plans that would require labeling of foods with at least one ingredient that contains more than one percent of genetically modified material. The new rules should come into effect within three months, after expected approval from the EU’s executive […]
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Clinton's Ditch
Pres. Clinton signed a bill yesterday designating the nation’s 55th national park, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River in western Colorado, the first national park created in five years. The 30,000-acre area, most of which has been a national monument since 1933, features a canyon just 40 feet across at its narrowest point and […]
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Y2 Chaos?
The CIA told Congress yesterday that there’s cause for concern about the Y2K bug compromising the safety of aging Soviet-era nuclear power plants in Russia and Ukraine. The risk of an accident is low, said Lawrence Gershwin of the CIA, but still higher that usual because computer problems could be aggravated by power failures. A […]
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A former stock trader learns how to really pick 'em
It’s an overcast day outside of Stoughton, Wis., the village that claims to have invented the “kaffee break.” But a warm cup of java seems far, far away from Pleasant Hill Market Garden, where farmer Rob Baratz fights off the early morning, chilled wind with gritted teeth and a hand-rolled cigarette. Baratz, up on the […]
