Latest Articles
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Couch Potatoes Getting Baked
Three environmental groups today are launching an $11 million-dollar “public education” campaign in the U.S. about the health dangers and physical costs of climate change, with the aim of putting the environment on voters’ minds before the 2000 elections and putting the heat on Congress for its lack of action on the issue. The groups […]
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Mess Transit
Many top enviro groups made a last-minute appeal to Pres. Clinton yesterday to veto a transportation spending bill with a provision that would prevent the federal government from even studying the possibility of raising fuel-efficiency standards for new cars and light trucks. But White House officials said they expect Clinton to sign the bill. Enviros […]
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A Cigar Is a Cigar, But a Rainforest Is a Smoke
Smoke from the burning of forests decreases rainfall, according to new research to be published this month in Geophysical Research Letters. Scientists studied the area of Kalimantan, Indonesia, last year when the southeastern portion of the island was engulfed in smoke and the northwestern portion was relatively smoke-free, and found that precipitation was much lower […]
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O, Say, Can You See?
Four utilities that own a massive coal-fired power plant in Nevada that has been accused of polluting the Grand Canyon and blocking its views have agreed to spend $300 million to install scrubbers to reduce sulfur-dioxide pollution. The agreement, expected to be announced today, comes as a settlement in a lawsuit brought by enviro groups […]
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Jeremiah Was a Sick Frog, Was a Deformed Friend of Mine
Pesticides used in agriculture have been linked to some frog deformities in Minnesota, according to two new studies published in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. A combination of chemicals in Minnesota ponds appears to be causing malformations of frogs’ limbs, eyes, mouths, and other parts. Doug Fort, a coauthor of one of the studies, […]
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A review of 'God's Last Offer' by Ed Ayres
In 1998, S. Sailam, a farmer living with his pregnant wife and two children in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, found that the pesticide he was spraying on his cotton crop had ceased to do its job. In desperation, he killed himself by squirting the pesticide down his throat. More than 100 of his fellow farmers in the region took their lives with this same tragic gesture in January and February of last year. They had been pressed by the Indian government to abandon their tradition of diversified agriculture in favor of high-tech operations growing monoculture cotton for export, and they needed big yields to pay back the loans that financed their switch. When the farmers' crops were decimated by caterpillars, their lives were destroyed as well.
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Southern Exposure
Radioactive water leaked at a South Korean nuclear power plant last night, exposing at least 22 people to radiation. The government says the radiation was contained within the facility and would not affect the outside environment. The incident follows an accident last week at a uranium-processing plant in Japan, which exposed at least 49 people […]
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All Roads Lead to Rome — Except on Wednesdays
Starting tomorrow, Rome’s historic center will be off-limits for six hours each Wednesday to vehicles without catalytic converters, city officials said on Monday. The ban, aimed at reducing levels of toxic benzene, is expected to affect about 1 million cars. Starting August 31, 2000, all of Rome will be closed to cars without the pollution-filtering […]
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Wind-Win Situation
Ten percent of the world’s electricity could come from wind by 2020, up from just 0.15 percent today, if governments make development of wind capacity a priority, according to a new report released by Greenpeace International, the European Wind Energy Association, and the Denmark-based Forum for Energy and Development. Wind power grew by an average […]
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Snailed to the Wall
Freshwater species in North America are vanishing from lakes and rivers at the same startling rate as species in tropical rainforests, according to a new study published in the journal Conservation Biology. Widespread habitat destruction has already caused at least 123 freshwater species to go extinct this century, and surviving species are expected to disappear […]
