Latest Articles

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, […]

Utility Kicks Off 21st Century By Finally Entering 20th

A Florida utility has agreed to cut tens of thousands of tons of pollution annually from two power plants in a settlement with the EPA, which could prompt similar agreements to resolve a government lawsuit against 32 aging coal-fired power plants in 10 states. Tampa Electric Co. will also pay a $3.5 million civil penalty […]

Pigs May Fly, Part I: Oil Company Embraces Truth (Sort Of)

Texaco yesterday became the first major U.S. oil company to defect from the Global Climate Coalition, a business group that denies the seriousness of climate change and opposes the Kyoto Protocol. Texaco explained that it wants to speak for itself on the issues of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, though it still does not […]

Super Salmon Not Super-Fly

A New Zealand aquaculture company last week dropped its test program for breeding genetically modified chinook salmon and said it will kill and bury all the experimental fish, in the wake of government and public concerns that the fish, some of which were deformed, could escape into the wild and breed with native strains. The […]