Latest Articles
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Zed Fun
Meet Zed, last of his species. What’s two-feet-tall, yellow, funny, and desperately looking for a date? Introducing Zed, a critter who’s the last of his species and the star of a weekly Grist Magazine comic strip. Now Zed, whose plight came about because of global warming, has his own video and game. Check ’em out. […]
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Wind power is dividing enviros and spurring some odd alliances
The National Audubon Society hosted a news conference in September 1999 to denounce Enron Wind Corp.’s plans to build a wind farm near the town of Gorman in Southern California, with enough capacity to power 40,000 homes. “It is hard to imagine a worse idea than putting a condor Cuisinart next door to critical condor […]
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The French Are Fly
The French government is proposing a tax on carbon emissions that would help the country meet its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto climate change treaty. Prime Minister Lionel Jospin’s legislative package, to be presented next week, will include the tax, which would take effect in 2001 and apply to France’s state-owned […]
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Japanese Banging Their Heads Over Heavy Metal
After years of defiantly eating whale meat in the face of an international ban on whaling, the Japanese are finally cutting back on their consumption — but they’re doing it because the meat is so highly contaminated by pollution, not because they are concerned about dwindling whale populations. Japanese scientists have found high levels of […]
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Sealing Their Fate
Dozens of sea lions, seals, and sea turtles die each year after being sucked into power plants along Southern California’s coast, but federal and regional regulators have done little to stop the deaths. Several power plants use ocean water to cool the super-hot steam that powers energy-generating turbines; intake pipes extend far into the ocean […]
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Th!nk Different
Ford will announce today that it has created an independent brand, Th!nk, that will develop and market low-pollution and electric-powered vehicles, as well as battery-powered bicycles. Th!nk, named after an electric car produced by a Norwegian company that Ford bought last year, will soon begin selling bikes and an electric golf-cart-like vehicle over the Internet […]
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Dam It All!!
Enviros, who have been heartened in recent months by a growing movement in favor of breaching dams, had cause for remorse on Friday when a gigantic new dam was dedicated in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains in Southern California. Enviros fear that the $420 million Seven Oaks Dam, erected above the growing sprawl […]
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Putin the Blame on Enviros
Environmentalists in Russia are nervous about the new Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. Critics say that when Putin was head of the FSB security service, formerly the KGB, he allowed the agency to harass and prosecute enviros. Last summer, Putin said environmental groups were fronts for Western spy agencies. Human-rights activists say the FSB’s treatment […]
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Do the Right Thing
I’ve been bewailing the short-term, sound-bite, soul-less way in which the U.S. media greeted the turn not only of a century, but of a millennium. (You know — lists of the top 10 athletes of the century, ads for the soft drink of the new millennium.) Then in from the Internet came welcome news of […]
