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  • New Mexico ranchers are howling over reintroduction efforts

    Two years after the first 11 Mexican gray wolves were released to much fanfare in the Apache National Forest of southeastern Arizona, and a year after an additional 22 wolves were freed in 1998, only seven remain in the wild. A lone wolf. Photo: J. & K. Hollingsworth, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The problems […]

  • Burying the Corps

    The National Wildlife Federation and Taxpayers for Common Sense are teaming up today to release a report that criticizes 25 Army Corps of Engineers projects as environmentally destructive and a waste of more than $6 billion. One of the projects blasted in the report is a billion-dollar expansion of barge locks on the upper Mississippi […]

  • A Sock in the Eye

    About 50 orcas from two pods that live in the waters near Washington state’s San Juan Islands have migrated to California’s Monterey Bay, 1,000 miles farther south than they’ve ever been seen before, most likely because salmon in Washington are in such short supply. In the past, the orcas could count on a year-round supply […]

  • My Sediments Exactly

    The U.S. Forest Service is sure to stir up controversy today when it proposes a new policy that would make it more difficult to construct roads in the 155 national forests in the U.S. Most such roads are built for logging, and many of them are eroding and dumping sediment into waterways, endangering fish. Under […]

  • Old King Coal Was a Dirty Old Soul

    The U.S. government yesterday expanded an ongoing legal battle against dirty, coal-burning power plants, adding 12 plants to a lawsuit it filed against utilities in November. The move comes just one day after the feds announced a landmark settlement under which a Florida utility will spend some $1 billion to clean up two dirty facilities. […]

  • Ouch — That Street Smarts

    Children who live near busy streets or highways are up to six times more likely than other children to contract cancer or leukemia, according to a new study in the Journal of the Air and Waste Management Association. The study authors, from the University of Colorado at Boulder, speculate that the cause is carcinogens in […]

  • Can't See the Forest

    20 percent of Earth’s original forests remain undisturbed 13 percent of original forests in the Pacific Northwest remain undisturbed 1 to 2 percent of original forests in the U.S. remain undisturbed 2.47 acres of rainforest are destroyed each second, an area approximately the size of two U.S. football fields 214,000 acres of rainforest are destroyed […]

  • Pigs May Fly, Part II: Corporations Go Kyoto Cool

    IBM Corp. and Johnson & Johnson are teaming up with the World Wildlife Fund in a new program to help corporations make significant cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions. The Climate Savers program is intended to show that companies can voluntarily achieve emissions cuts that equal or exceed those called for in the Kyoto climate […]

  • Nuke Power Really Sucks. Yes, Indeedy.

    Belarus citizens have soaring levels of infertility and other serious health problems 14 years after the Chernobyl disaster, doctors announced yesterday. One quarter of Belarus, a country downwind from the Chernobyl site in the Ukraine, was subjected to severe contamination from the accident. Within seven years of the disaster, mortality rates were outstripping birth rates, […]

  • On the Upside, the Gabonese Are Using Fewer Leaf Blowers

    Forests in Canada, Cameroon, and Gabon are being chopped down at a greater rate than previously thought, according to the Global Forest Watch project, which is tracking changes in forest cover with sophisticated digital tools, including satellite imagery and geographic information systems. In its first report, Global Forest Watch, sponsored by the World Resources Institute, […]