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The Internet may give a boost to energy efficiency.Com and Get It

The emerging new economy created by the Internet is producing more than just a business revolution — it is also generating enormous environmental benefits. The Internet can turn buildings into websites, and replace warehouses with supply-chain software. It can turn paper and CDs into electrons, and replace trucks with fiberoptic cable. This means significant energy […]

Burning Emberas

Some 170 Embera-Katio Indians from a northeastern Colombia rainforest have been camped out since Dec. 17 on the grounds of the Colombian Environment Ministry in Bogota, protesting a massive hydroelectric project that is destroying their homes and way of life. About 2,400 Emberas live in stilted huts along the banks of the Sinu River and […]

Hot and Steamy

Geothermal power will get a boost today when U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announces a goal of generating as much as 10 percent of the West’s electricity from geothermal sources by 2020. Richardson will announce $4.8 million in grants to advance research in geothermal energy, a renewable source that taps heat energy from under the […]

Talk About a Flood of Refugees

Bangladeshi Environment Minister Sajeeda Choudhury warned this weekend that if sea levels rise in line with climate change predictions, approximately 20 million Bangladeshis would become environmental refugees and industrialized nations would have an obligation to find room for them. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that up to 17.5 percent of Bangladesh’s landmass […]

Poll Position

An overwhelming majority of Americans support Pres. Clinton’s proposal to protect 54 million acres of national forests from logging, road-building, and development, according to a poll commissioned by the Heritage Forests Campaign and conducted by American Viewpoint, a leading Republican polling firm. Some 76 percent of 1,000 registered voters surveyed said they were in favor […]

Bill's Bad Week

One of the headlines in the Des Moines Register’s “Life” section on Saturday read: “Muckraker Comes to Town.” Well, they got the headline right, anyway. The story referred to filmmaker Michael Moore, not this reporter, who is also in town following the presidential candidates around as they madly scour Iowa in search of votes in […]

Pork Politics

“Campaign reform” is much too polite a phrase. “Ending corruption” is more like it. I could — and maybe I will — write a column a week from now till next fall’s election counting the ways campaign contributions corrupt our government, destroy our public assets, and rob taxpayers. Today’s example is industrial hog farming. This […]

There Goes the Neighborhood

EV Come, EV Go?

General Motors Corp. is still committed to manufacturing its EV1 electric cars, the company’s vice chair said yesterday, contrary to reports last week that the company planned to abandon its electric car program to concentrate on vehicles powered by fuel cells and hybrid-electric systems. News that GM was dropping the EV1 had angered some enviro […]

Cut the Crap

Congress could save taxpayers $50 billion by cutting environmentally harmful projects and subsidies, according to a report released yesterday by the Green Scissors coalition, which includes enviro and government watchdog groups. Among other egregious expenditures of public money, the coalition pointed to subsidies for hard rock mining, fossil-fuel research, and the oil, timber, and sugar […]