Latest Articles
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Jeremiah Was a Sick Frog, Was a Deformed Friend of Mine
Pesticides used in agriculture have been linked to some frog deformities in Minnesota, according to two new studies published in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. A combination of chemicals in Minnesota ponds appears to be causing malformations of frogs’ limbs, eyes, mouths, and other parts. Doug Fort, a coauthor of one of the studies, […]
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A review of 'God's Last Offer' by Ed Ayres
In 1998, S. Sailam, a farmer living with his pregnant wife and two children in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, found that the pesticide he was spraying on his cotton crop had ceased to do its job. In desperation, he killed himself by squirting the pesticide down his throat. More than 100 of his fellow farmers in the region took their lives with this same tragic gesture in January and February of last year. They had been pressed by the Indian government to abandon their tradition of diversified agriculture in favor of high-tech operations growing monoculture cotton for export, and they needed big yields to pay back the loans that financed their switch. When the farmers' crops were decimated by caterpillars, their lives were destroyed as well.
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Southern Exposure
Radioactive water leaked at a South Korean nuclear power plant last night, exposing at least 22 people to radiation. The government says the radiation was contained within the facility and would not affect the outside environment. The incident follows an accident last week at a uranium-processing plant in Japan, which exposed at least 49 people […]
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All Roads Lead to Rome — Except on Wednesdays
Starting tomorrow, Rome’s historic center will be off-limits for six hours each Wednesday to vehicles without catalytic converters, city officials said on Monday. The ban, aimed at reducing levels of toxic benzene, is expected to affect about 1 million cars. Starting August 31, 2000, all of Rome will be closed to cars without the pollution-filtering […]
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Wind-Win Situation
Ten percent of the world’s electricity could come from wind by 2020, up from just 0.15 percent today, if governments make development of wind capacity a priority, according to a new report released by Greenpeace International, the European Wind Energy Association, and the Denmark-based Forum for Energy and Development. Wind power grew by an average […]
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Snailed to the Wall
Freshwater species in North America are vanishing from lakes and rivers at the same startling rate as species in tropical rainforests, according to a new study published in the journal Conservation Biology. Widespread habitat destruction has already caused at least 123 freshwater species to go extinct this century, and surviving species are expected to disappear […]
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Dumb-Dumb Bullets
The U.S. military used depleted uranium (DU) bullets, which are made of low-level nuclear waste material and which leave toxic and radioactive debris, as it chased Serbian forces from Kosovo. But the Pentagon won’t talk about how much DU ammunition was fired and has issued no warning to the people who live in Kosovo. DU […]
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Hasta La Vista, Baby
Seeking to extricate itself from a contentious debate, Monsanto said yesterday that it would not sell seeds that produce sterile crops, which have been dubbed “terminator” seeds by vocal opponents around the world. The critics, who hailed yesterday’s announcement, had warned that the development of such seeds would make farmers more dependent on large agribusiness […]
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Sean O'Brien, W. Alton Jones Foundation
Sean T. O’Brien, Ph.D., is a circuit rider for the W. Alton Jones Foundation in Charlottesville, Va. Monday, 4 Oct 1999 CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. People laugh when I tell them my job title is “circuit rider.” It sounds funny, but I love it. How many people have a job title that is a pun, much less […]
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Shining a Light on Dark Corners of the Budget Process
I don’t know any other way to stop the ugly, destructive, sneaky, greedy, immoral, undemocratic goings-on in the dark corners of the congressional budget process, except to keep shining bright lights on them. This is time of year when it is decided how your and my tax dollars get spent, supposedly for our public welfare, […]
