Climate Technology
All Stories
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Leaf Me Alone
At international talks underway on protecting endangered species, the Bush administration has announced that it is “neutral” and “undecided” in the debate over whether to restrict trade in big-leaf mahogany from Latin America. The U.S. position since the time of George Bush the Elder had been to call for stricter limits on trade in the […]
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Tally Ho!
Prodded by donors, the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, and other groups are working to create accounting standards (both financial and biological) to measure the success of conservation projects. “There’s no industry standard, no Dow Jones,” said M. A. Sanjayan, a scientist who is leading the conservancy effort. Some $120 billion is spent each year […]
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I’m a Lumberjack and I’m O.K.?
To the great joy of Canadian loggers, British Columbia’s Liberal government unveiled a plan this week to streamline the approval process for forest cutting by April 2003. “The entire framework asks for a lot of trust and faith in the activities of forest corporations,” said University of British Columbia forestry professor George Hoberg. Forest Minister […]
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99 and 44/100 Percent Confusing
Five southern African nations are requesting permission to resume ivory trading at an international conference that begins today in Santiago, Chile. They are asking the 160 countries that have signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to allow them to clear out stockpiles — mainly from elephants that died naturally — and to […]
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Half-baked Alaska
Anti-environmentalism in Alaska is at a fever pitch, and it’s affecting the shape of nearly every political campaign in the final weeks before voters go to the polls. Incumbent state Rep. Harry Crawford (D), for example, has gone out of his way to try to convince his constituency that he’s pro-development, not eco-friendly. “I believe […]
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Arkansas of the Covenant
Arkansas is poised to consider an innovative plan to create an “alternative fuels” tax on electricity and gas users in the state. Under the plan, which state Rep. Herschel Cleveland (D) said yesterday that he would introduce to the state assembly early next year, residents would be charged a 25-cent tax on each of their […]
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Trick or Treaty
Ten years after the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted, controversy continues over the environmental consequences of increased trade between the U.S. and Mexico. Some experts who bitterly opposed NAFTA at the start now feel that the treaty has led to some improvements in quality of life in U.S. border areas — but they […]
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Tripping Out
A government-supported pilot project in Alberta, Canada, is offering companies greenhouse-gas credits for every employee who works from home, in order to reduce emissions associated with commuting. The plan is the first step in an effort to produce a Canadian carbon-credits market, whereby firms that cut greenhouse-gas emissions will be able to sell credits to […]
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Electric Avenues?
What do Detroit billionaires do with their cash after they retire from the upper echelons of the auto industry? The answer, in the cases of Lee Iacocca and Robert Stempel, may surprise you: They start electric-car companies. Stempel, the former head of General Motors, helped create the emissions-reducing catalytic converter in 1966 and has always […]
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Michigan residents fight for control of the state’s water
Until two years ago, the 40,550 generally well-behaved Midwesterners of Mecosta County, Mich., regularly attended church, sent their children off to school on yellow buses, and never for a moment worried that their clean, freshwater supply would ever run dry. Mecosta County, after all, sits near the center of Michigan’s lower peninsula, which itself sits […]
