Based on the results of an investigative series by the Chicago Tribune newspaper, the Consumers Union has issued a recommendation that pregnant women avoid eating tuna of any kind due to the high risk of unhealthy levels of mercury contained therein.
The nonprofit Center for Food Safety (CFS) filed suit last week calling on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to require labeling for and conduct mandatory reviews of genetically engineered foods to be sold in the United States. Many environmental and consumer advocates fear that genetically engineered (GE) foods can harm human and ecosystem health, and as such have been lobbying Congress for years to pass more stringent regulations governing what has become the fastest growing sector of agriculture.
Welcome to E/The Environmental Magazine first streaming audio debate. This face-off between Wayne Pacelle, chief operating officer of the Humane Society of the U.S., and Charles Stenholm, a former Democratic congressman from Texas and current lobbyist for the horse slaughter industry (as a senior policy advisor at Olsson, Frank and Weeda) was recorded live on WPKN-FM in Bridgeport, Connecticut March 14, 2006.
In yet more glum climate-related news, international researchers have found that the world’s tropical regions have widened over the past quarter century, most likely as a result of human-induced global warming. The study, published in last week’s issue of the journal Science, details how the tropics have expanded an average of 140 miles toward the poles around the globe.
Historically, a seat in the Bush cabinet has required staunch conservative views on a wide range of issues, especially the environment. That is why many political pundits were surprised to learn that the White House has tapped noted conservationist and Wall Street financier Hank Paulson to the top post at the Treasury Department.
It’s not every day you see a U.S. Senator surrounded by garbage. The senator was Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) and the location was the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, Connecticut, on a site overlooking the tidal Norwalk River, which flows into Long Island Sound. The garbage (including no less than three water bottles) was there to showcase the effectiveness of 275 storm drain filters…
From my bedroom window I can hear the sounds of traffic streaming by on Interstate 25, carrying folk around the last corner down from the pass through the Sangre de Christo foothills at Glorieta and the Pecos River, toward Santa Fe, New Mexico. They descend the mountain toward their jobs or they come down to vacation from points north, crossing a gateway where populations and commerce of the great Midwestern plains pass into a strange and almost alien country of the southwest, where civilization appears to change in some subtle manner, just like the landscape.
After years of political wrangling over a contentious plan to build large wind turbines in Nantucket Sound off the Massachusetts coast, a new proposal for a similar type of wind development in nearby Buzzard’s Bay is gaining traction among politicians and environmentalists alike. The key difference is that the latter plan proposes to site its wind turbines in an already busy shipping channel traversed by more than 8,000 commercial ships each year, whereas the earlier Nantucket proposal calls for siting turbines in relatively pristine open ocean.
Environmentalists are incensed at plans for the Department of Energy and Bureau of Land Management to punch thousands of miles of new power lines and pipelines through Western federal lands–including several national parks and forests–over the next 14 months. Last week, Congress passed legislation calling for the fast track construction of energy transfer corridors as a way to quickly shore up electricity supplies across the West.
SARATOGA SPRINGS, NEW YORK–When was the last time you were low on gas on the way to your friend’s house and thought, "No problem; I’ll just plug in when I get there"? Well, some of the cars showcased May 10 to 14 at the 18th annual Tour de Sol were electric vehicles (EVs) that could power-up using ordinary wall outlets–one of many exciting alternatives to standard internal-combustion featured at the upstate New York event.
