Latest Articles

Power Lyin'?

A Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researcher falsified data that had been considered crucial evidence of a link between electromagnetic fields from power lines and cancer in humans, according to a federal investigation. Robert P. Liburdy agreed to have scientific journals that published his studies in 1992 retract some of his data, but he denies any […]

Corporate Welfare: As Sure as Death and Taxes

Big tax breaks for companies not known for their eco-friendliness have wormed their way into a tax bill that has passed the House and another tax bill that is under consideration in the Senate. Enviro and consumer groups are criticizing tax breaks for the timber industry, oil and gas companies, and nuclear power plants. A […]

Silly Babbitt

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has buckled to the demands of ranchers and other land users along the upper Missouri River and declared that he will not put new restrictions on the area. He had sought to freeze new mining claims and other land uses along a stretch of the river and a surrounding 90,000-acre area […]

Rising Solar

Japan will launch an $85 million project next month to help Russia deal with environmental problems and conserve energy, reports the Yomiuri Shimbun in Japan. Much of the money will pay for research into the generation of electricity by natural gas, while funds will also go toward researching ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions, promoting […]

A Bum Deal

Nevada’s two Democratic senators are pressing a bill that would force the Bureau of Land Management to sell land near California’s Mojave National Preserve as a site for a second Las Vegas airport, even before environmental studies can be done to determine its potential impact. The Interior Department, on behalf of both the BLM and […]

A chiropractor builds a house, but does no harm

I called my friend Nancy Carter the other day to complain about some new complications in my personal/professional/spiritual life. Nancy, as usual, laughed in soft, dry tones and said something I didn’t really understand. Her words lay dormant in my brain until after lunch, when they unfurled as explicitly as a banner outside a Fourth […]

Greens Mourn Brown

Americans have been transfixed these last few days by the passing of a dazzling cultural icon, son of one of the most compelling — and tragic — political figures of the 20th century. A Green Brown Far less remarked upon has been the death last week of California Rep. George Brown (D), one of the […]

Reinventing the Wheels

EU ambassadors voted yesterday in favor of a bill that would force automakers to take back old cars and pay for the cost of recycling or reusing them, overriding opposition from Germany. The bill, which still needs approval from the EU parliament, would cover all cars produced in 2001 or later. By 2006, automakers would […]

Sit-In on the Dock of the Bay

Dockworkers, environmentalists, and the regional EPA office in Seattle joined forces yesterday to stop the first in a series of shipments of potentially toxic waste from Taiwan due to be shipped to Tacoma, Wash., this week, then on to an Idaho hazardous waste landfill. The waste was illegally dumped last year in Cambodia, where its […]

Gore Plays Heart and Soul

Vice Pres. Al Gore played the good environmentalist yesterday in New Hampshire, designating the Connecticut River, which winds through four New England states, as an American Heritage River and announcing that $819,000 will go toward projects related to the river. Gore canoed along the river with New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D), as friends, backers, […]