Climate Technology
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Hunger Strike
The backlash has begun against President Bush’s comment last week that a European Union ban on genetically modified (GM) foods is contributing to world hunger. The reality, critics say, is that the dispute over GM crops is an international agricultural battle with billion-dollar stakes, and that concern about famine in the developing world is a […]
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Mobil-ized
Gas and oil giant ExxonMobil has increased its donations to organizations that oppose government regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions and question the notion that humans cause global climate change. Although the company has pledged $10 million a year for 10 years to climate research at Stanford University, it is also giving generously to the […]
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Self-Destructive Behavior
It sounds like a bad movie. Wait, it IS a bad movie. A bad DVD, to be precise — at least from an environmental standpoint. A division of Walt Disney this August will begin selling DVDs that self-destruct after 48 hours, dubbed EZ-Ds. After an EZ-D’s plastic packaging is opened and it’s exposed to oxygen, […]
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The Anti-Pepsi Generation
Leaders of two rural communities in Kerala, a state in southwestern India, are going head-to-head with Coca-Cola and Pepsi, accusing the companies’ local bottling plants of depleting groundwater and triggering shortages. One village government revoked the water-use permit of a Pepsi plant last week, and another village denied a license renewal to a Coke plant […]
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Dela-Wherewithall
The state of Delaware, which already distinguished itself this year by approving criminal sanctions for executives at polluting companies, has now announced a voluntary program designed to give manufacturers incentives to surpass state environmental and conservation standards. The Principles for Responsible Industry program, which was announced yesterday by Gov. Ruth Ann Minner (D), sets high […]
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Seedy
Members of Brazil’s Landless Peasant Movement occupied a test farm owned by biotechnology giant Monsanto last week, in a bid to expel the company and establish an organic farm on the site instead. The protestors say neither the people nor the government of the Brazilian state of Parana support genetically modified (GM) crops, such as […]
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40 Acres and a Tax Break
California environmentalists and farmers rejoiced yesterday when Gov. Gray Davis (D) restored $40 million in funding for farmland and open-space protection under the Williamson Act. Together, farmers and enviros had lobbied heavily against the proposed elimination of the act, under which the state pays back counties for property taxes lost when landowners are given lower […]
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Pay Dirt
The “polluter pays” principle may be languishing in the U.S. under the business-friendly Bush administration, but it’s alive and well in Europe, where the European parliament voted this week to strengthen rules to make companies pay for the environmental problems they cause. Spurred on by the recent Prestige disaster, in which a tanker spilled tens […]
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William Shutkin reviews Bronx Ecology and Tilting at Mills
These are tough times for environmentalists, what with the Bush administration’s frontal assault on environmental policy, drastic funding cuts and layoffs in state environmental programs, and the aftermath of a war in Iraq fought, in the opinion of many, over our nation’s undying addiction to oil. It’s thus fitting, if somewhat disheartening, that along come […]
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Beehive State Stung
Outdoor recreation retailers are threatening to pull two trade shows out of Utah because they don’t like Gov. Mike Leavitt’s (R) efforts to curtail wilderness designations in the state. With $24 million in trade-show-generated revenue at stake, a worried Leavitt has agreed to meet with outdoor industry leaders to discuss the matter. “The governor is […]
