Latest Articles
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Star Warnings
The Brits are spearheading the biggest investigation into the Earth’s climate, a $640 million Living Planet program under the European Space Agency that will use satellites to study weather systems. The first project under the program will study the effects of global warming on polar ice caps, to be started in 2002.
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Afghan Forests No Longer Blanket the Country
Increasing deforestation in war-ravaged Afghanistan is a major concern, the U.N. warned last week. The environmental degradation facing the nation is among the most severe in the world, according to Stephanie Bunker of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of the Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan, and the country is in danger of losing all its […]
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Fusing over Fusion
After years of discouraging setbacks, specialists in hydrogen fusion research are banding together to revive the effort to harness energy from thermonuclear fusion. Believers say fusion energy could become a reality in the mid-21st century. Next month, scientists and engineers from around the world will convene in Snowmass, Colo., at a first-of-a-kind meeting of fusion […]
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There's Farming and Then There's Farming
A while ago, Beth Sawin and Phil Rice, researchers at the Sustainability Institute, put together a graph that I can’t get out of my mind. It shows Midwest corn yields doubling from about 60 bushels per acre in 1950 to 120 bushels on average today. Despite the doubled yield, gross earnings per acre have stayed […]
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Oil's Well in California
A battle is brewing over oil drilling off the coast of California, and the controversy is likely to become an issue in the 2000 presidential race. Federal officials are expected this month to give oil companies permission to develop 40 offshore oil leases. California Gov. Gray Davis (D), California Sens. Barbara Boxer (D) and Dianne […]
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Supreme Court A-Noise Enviros
The Supreme Court today refused to hear a case from environmental groups that want the feds to act more quickly to reduce noise in the Grand Canyon from sightseeing planes. The Federal Aviation Administration is developing rules that would control air traffic over the park and reduce noise by 2008, but seven enviro groups had […]
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Royal Flushed over Frankenfoods
Britain’s Prince Charles has bucked the royal tradition of political neutrality by loudly voicing his opposition to genetically modified crops, pitting him against Prime Minister Tony Blair. Charles, a committed organic farmer, wrote an article for the widely circulated Daily Mail posing “10 unanswered questions” about the safety, ethics, and effectiveness of gene-modification technology. Opinion […]
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DDT-Free Willy
Some killer whales in the Gulf of Alaska have dangerously high concentrations of DDT and PCBs in their blubber, according to a new scientific study. Scientists worry that several pods of whales in the area could die off because of the industrial contamination, which may interfere with their reproduction. Both DDT and PCBs are banned […]
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Bonn Fire
The Kyoto climate change treaty is running into real trouble over a European Union proposal to cap emissions trading. A new study of the European proposal by the Paris-based International Energy Agency estimates that a trading cap would have the largest impact on the U.S., reducing its ability to make trades by two-thirds and requiring […]
