Latest Articles
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All We Hate Is Dust in the Wind
The Department of Energy is abandoning its plan to build the first U.S. nuclear-waste incinerator in southern Idaho, a change of course applauded by environmental and community groups that had raised a lot of money and waged a high-profile battle against the facility. The DOE announced its decision yesterday as part of an agreement to […]
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National Park and Ride
Yosemite National Park in California would be returned to a more wild, less developed, condition under a plan outlined yesterday by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. The plan — which follows 20 years of battles over the future of the park and is now open to public comment — would scale back parking and remove some […]
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How Will the West Be Won?
In our last column, we promised to put the presidential campaign on the back burner and take a look at some of the key House and Senate races likely to decide control of the 107th Congress, as well some of the competitive gubernatorial contests. Instead of attempting to cover the entire country in one column […]
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Catalogs of Ills
In what appears to be an uncoordinated campaign, three friends have brought me three different mail-order catalogs, asking me to condemn them publicly. At first I resisted, because I prefer to dump on catalogs as a class, rather than singling some out, which might leave the mistaken impression that others are okay. However, three requests […]
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No Way — You Must Be Lion
In an experiment that could herald the future of endangered species preservation efforts, lions this year may give birth to endangered Bengal tigers. A team of scientists, led by Betsy Dresser of the University of New Orleans, has frozen about 170 tiger embryos and plans to implant them in lionesses within the next eight weeks. […]
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Gold Smith?
In a move that heartens enviros, Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.), the new chair of the Senate Environment Committee, has come out against legislative riders, which have been used to undermine environmental protections in recent years. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Smith wrote that he intends to oppose most environmental riders, […]
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Boston Baked Genes
An estimated 2,500 protestors marched peaceably through Boston streets yesterday in what organizers called the biggest demonstration in the U.S. against genetically modified (GM) foods. Protestors — many dressed as mutant creatures, macabre vegetables, and mad scientists — were making their voices heard during the largest biotechnology conference ever held in the U.S., which has […]
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It's Too Dam Hot
A federal court ruling ruled last week that four dams on the lower Snake River in southeastern Washington state must comply with the Clean Water Act, a move that enviros hope will give a boost to their fight to breach the dams in order to help restore salmon runs. The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit […]
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Talking Trash
Americans are recycling in record amounts, but are also throwing out more trash than ever before, according to a report released yesterday by the GrassRoots Recycling Network. Recycling kept 28 percent of municipal waste out of landfills and incinerators in 1997, the last year for which the EPA has data, triple the recycling rate of […]
