Latest Articles
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Advice on how to cope with aging appliances
Before you buy, consider: Do you need a new product at all? Increasingly, consumers opt to toss belongings out before their useful lives are truly over. Rapidly changing technology is one reason for this trend — we want new products with new features. But often items are discarded because they are difficult to fix when […]
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The Phantom Menace?
Last week brought an end to the remarkable run of Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who announced his intention to leave Washington and turn the reins of the federal treasury over to his well-groomed deputy, Lawrence Summers, known affectionately to some enviro insiders as Darth Vader. Although Wall Street may be comfortable with Summers, environmentalists are […]
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Food Not Fit for a Monarch
Genetically modified corn can kill monarch butterflies, according to a study by Cornell University scientists published in today’s issue of the journal Nature. The corn contains a toxin that kills pests that feed on the crop, but researchers determined that the toxin also poses a risk to the butterflies. They found that toxic pollen from […]
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Clean Air Inaction
Thirty-nine percent of factories tracked in a federal database were guilty of significant Clean Air Act violations from 1997 through 1998, according to a study released today by the Environmental Working Group. The violations by the businesses studied — oil refineries, pulp mills, steel mills, iron mills, auto assembly plants, and metal smelting and refining […]
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Another Writ from Ritt
The European Union is in danger of missing its target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the European Commission announced yesterday, urging European nations to quickly agree on proposals to cut emissions. The EU pledged at the 1997 Kyoto climate change talks to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 8 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. Acting […]
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Swap Swatted
The U.S. Forest Service failed to take into account potential harm to natural resources and damage to an ancient Indian trail when it approved a major forest land swap with Weyerhaeuser in Washington state, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. The court said Weyerhaeuser, which has already logged part of the land since acquiring it […]
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A Strike at Snake Dams
A utility district in west-central Oregon this week became the first to back breaching of four federal dams on the lower Snake River to help restore endangered salmon runs. The utility sent a letter to the Clinton administration urging partial dam removal, asserting that breaching the dams represented the best way to save the salmon […]
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George W. Fission for a Position
Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R), the leading GOP presidential hopeful, is staking positions on controversial environmental issues in his home state. The Texas House is considering a bill that would allow old industrial plants that have been exempted from Clean Air Act regulations to ease into compliance voluntarily. Bush supports the bill, while enviros […]
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Better Red Than Dead?
Russia’s 147 million citizens are facing desperate health problems, in part because of the nation’s environmental degradation. In an upcoming issue of Policy Review, Harvard demographer Nicholas Eberstadt writes about Russia’s public health crisis, claiming that “No industrialized country has ever before suffered such a severe and prolonged deterioration during peacetime.” In the first half […]
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Republicanes Plan to Mocke Ale Goree
House Republicans are gearing up to ridicule Al Gore for his environmental leanings, hoping to make him the butt of late-night TV jokes just as Dan Quayle was. Today, several conservative House members plan to read on the House floor what they consider to be the most controversial sections of Gore’s 1992 book Earth in […]
