Latest Articles

Flee Willy!

British Columbia’s southern population of orcas may be in trouble, a point emphasized last weekend when one of the orcas washed up dead on shore, its body highly contaminated with PCBs, dangerous human-made toxins. Tests on the dead whale’s body have not yet been completed, but a 1996 biopsy of the same whale found PCB […]

In Hot Water

Contaminated plumes of groundwater under the Nevada Test Site, where 828 underground nuclear tests were conducted between 1956 and 1992, may travel beyond the borders of the site toward populated areas in as little as 10 years, some scientists say. Federal scientists knew when they conducted the tests that the area’s groundwater would be tainted, […]

Forgive Them Their Debts

President Clinton, who is travelling through South Asia this week, announced yesterday that the U.S. will spend $50 million over four years to promote clean-energy projects in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. He also announced a debt-for-nature swap with Bangladesh under which the U.S. will forgive $6 million in debt in exchange for Bangladesh protecting tropical […]

Just for the Halibut

Thousands of rare sea birds and hundreds of marine mammals are being entangled and killed in fishing nets in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary off California’s central coast — and it’s all perfectly legal. Though national marine sanctuaries are established to protect marine resources, commercial and recreational fishing is generally allowed in the areas, […]

That's Why They Call Him the "Vice" President

Vice President Al Gore is coming under increasing scrutiny and criticism from enviros and others because of his cozy ties to Occidental Petroleum. Gore — who owns as much as $500,000 worth of Occidental stock and has earned about $450,000 since 1974 from a zinc-mining deal that the company helped set up — last week […]

The Road to Hell Is Paved By the Brazilian Government?

The Brazilian government’s plans to repair and pave four highways could lead to the deforestation of up to 72,000 square miles of the Amazon rainforest over the next 25 to 30 years, according to a new study by enviros. The planned improvements to more than 2,000 miles of roads would give loggers easier access to […]

Strife of the Party

Germany’s Green Party has abandoned its goal of immediate closure for all the nation’s nuclear power plants, agreeing to a compromise deal under which Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s Social Democrats plan to phase out the nation’s 19 nuclear reactors by 2018. The Greens’ decision came at the urging of its most influential member, Foreign Minister Joschka […]

Let's Look Before We Leap into Biotech

Biotech stocks plummeted last week as President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair requested that companies make their data on the human genome public. Private firms are racing madly to read and patent the genetic code that makes you you and me me. They are trying to beat publicly funded labs, which are required […]

Not Fine and Not Dandy

For 12 years, the U.S. Department of Energy has neglected to regularly impose fines on contractors running federal nuclear weapons plants and labs when the contractors fail to protect workers and the public from radiation hazards. A 1988 federal law authorizes fines and other penalties, but the DOE has yet to draft all the administrative […]

Agra-vation

In an effort to keep India’s majestic Taj Mahal from turning black because of serious air pollution, the government is clamping down on industry and cars in the city of Agra. One plan to help clean the air is to promote pedal-powered rickshaws, a non-polluting form of transportation that has long been used in the […]