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  • Holy Sheet!

    The melting of ice sheets and glaciers around the world accelerated during the 1990s, the warmest decade on record, and the melting is now happening at the fastest rate since record-keeping began, according to a new report by the Worldwatch Institute. Many scientists believe the increased melting is one of the first observable signs of […]

  • Go Tell It on Green Mountain

    A rich Texas businessman who is one of George W. Bush’s biggest campaign contributors admitted on Friday that he had paid $2.5 million to run TV ads that accuse John McCain of voting against renewable energy while praising Bush for his environmental record. Sam Wyly said he wanted to draw attention to environmental issues in […]

  • This Land Is My Land, This Land Is Your Land

    Last week the Vermont Environmental Board denied a permit to a developer for a project in Hartland. It was a typical interstate-exit gas-and-food stop — the kind of place no one likes to look at but we’re all glad to find when we’re on a long trip and running low on fuel. Hartland’s I-91 exit […]

  • Action Figures

    In the wake of the World Trade Organization protest in Seattle last year, environmentalists are strengthening alliances with other progressive movements and helping to plan a series of demonstrations to keep the momentum going. Big protests are planned for April 16 in Washington, D.C., where the World Bank and International Monetary Fund will be holding […]

  • USDA Eats Its Words

    In a move being hailed by enviros, the U.S. Department of Agriculture this week will announce tough new proposed standards for organic foods. The department had released a previous set of standards in 1997, but went back to the drawing board after receiving more than 275,000 negative public comments about the rules, which would have […]

  • Sunshine on My Solar Cell Makes Me Happy

    Native American Photovoltaics, a new nonprofit, aims to bring solar power to homes on Indian reservations across the U.S. Last year, the group launched a program that offers families in the southwestern portion of the Navajo Reservation in Arizona the chance to lease-to-own a solar generator that can provide enough power to fuel lights, a […]

  • How Appealing!

    In a big victory for the EPA and enviros, a federal appeals court on Friday confirmed the EPA’s authority to make states crack down on power-plant emissions that contribute to dirty air drifting from state to state. Many Northeastern states have long argued that they cannot meet federal air quality standards unless pollution originating in […]

  • I Spy a Great Big Rainforest

    The Brazilian government is launching a five-year high-tech project that will use satellites, surveillance aircraft, and radar systems to keep tabs on activities in the Amazon rainforest, which stretches across some 3.1 million square miles of the country. Officials estimate that 5 million acres of Amazon forest are illegally logged each year, and unlicensed gold […]

  • Preaching the gospel of ecotourism

    Costas Christ has a knack for handling sticky situations. I got a glimpse of this as I was making my way home from an ecotourism conference in Senegal in the early 1990s. Along with a number of other conference participants, I was stuck in the airport in the capital city of Dakar. For some unknown […]