Latest Articles
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How Do They Harm Thee? We Can't Count the Ways
A prominent U.S. panel of scientists has concluded that not enough is known about hormone-altering chemicals to calculate their risks to humans. In a report requested by Congress, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences yesterday acknowledged that pesticides and other chemicals that mimic estrogen and block male hormones seem to be feminizing some […]
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Urban Bright
The Department of Energy wants to put solar panels on vacant, contaminated urban industrial sites, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson will announce today. The project will get underway in Chicago, where a solar panel manufacturer has agreed to set up shop on a 17-acre former dump site, and the city and local electric utility have agreed […]
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Strip Joint Visit
Israel’s new environment minister, Dalia Itzik, on Monday toured the blighted Gaza Strip with her Palestinian counterpart, Yousef Abu Safieh, marking the beginning of what they hope will be an era of cooperation in addressing the region’s environmental woes. Discussion between the two was polite, but each side pointed to problems the other had caused. […]
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A Match Made in Hell?
Dow Chemical is moving to buy Union Carbide in a huge $9.3 billion deal that would create a worldwide chemical industry giant, second in size only to DuPont. The deal still needs approval from the boards of both companies. Union Carbide is perhaps best known for the world’s worst recorded industrial accident, in which a […]
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Dead in the Water
The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico has doubled in size since last year to 7,728 square miles, larger than it’s ever been before — and larger than New Jersey. The dead zone, a layer of water at the bottom of the Gulf so low in oxygen that it can’t support life, forms annually, […]
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Coke Ain't It
Coca-Cola has reneged on a promise to use recycled plastic in its bottles, an environmental group charged this week. The GrassRoots Recycling Network, an umbrella organization for some 400 enviro groups, criticized Coke in an ad in Monday’s New York Times, and plans to run a series of similar ads in various other publications. In […]
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Bright ideas for saving energy
Power plants and climate change have been on the minds of many consumers who lost electrical service and sweated out the record-breaking temperatures that recently hit areas across the country. Most experts believe the planet’s temperature has been rising as a result of increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, […]
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Two Mindsets, Two Visions of Sustainable Agriculture
“I guess you must be in favor of pesticides,” concluded a Monsanto public relations guy, after I objected to his company’s genetically engineered potato. “I guess it’s okay with you if people starve,” said a botanist I deeply respect, with whom I have carried out a fervent argument about genetic engineering. Accusations like these astonish […]
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Protecting the Apples of Our Eye
Citing health risks to children, the EPA yesterday restricted the use of two pesticides widely used on apples and other crops. But enviros say the agency has bowed to industry pressure and failed to crack down on the most dangerous pesticides. The Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups plan to sue the EPA […]
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The Squad of Small Slings
Thousands of Indians joined author Arundhati Roy and other activists Sunday in the central Indian village of Pathrad to protest dam projects that they say would uproot local people. The Maheshwar Hydel Project, a dam under construction by a private company, would submerge 61 villages, including Pathrad. Another construction plan, the Narmada Valley Development project, […]
