Much to the delight of environmentalists, the Bush administration has withdrawn a contentious proposal to drill for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) from its omnibus energy bill, which it hopes to push through Congress this session. The White House hopes to leverage the increased Republican majority in Congress for passage of the $31 billion bill, originally introduced three years ago.
I had the good fortune to speak at the Eco Metropolis conference in Manhattan in mid-November. Here was a useful focus on greening a city that is already pretty green. For instance, only 44 percent of city households include a car, the lowest rate among major cities in the U.S. (the most auto-dependent country in the world). Portland, Oregon and other big public transportation players can’t come close to that.
Not surprisingly, President Bush has thus far failed to mention the environment in discussions about his second-term agenda. But even though the White House will be focusing primarily on foreign policy and domestic economic issues, some environmentalists are optimistic that the administration will work to leave an environmental legacy to be proud of during its second term.
Just three days after the presidential election, Sierra Club National Media Director Kerri Glover told <I>E</I>, "There is virtually no news organization that hasn’t called us and asked, ‘Don’t you think the environment is screwed under another four years of Bush?’" Glover says she wishes reporters and news anchors had made a bigger deal about environmental issues <I>before</I> the election, instead of after.
Many environmentalists complain that Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is dangerously unsuitable for nuclear waste storage.
The Working Group on Climate Change and Development, a coalition of environmental and relief aid organizations, released a report last week stating that the onset of global warming threatens to undermine progress made in recent decades on lifting residents of many developing nations out of poverty.
With Halloween season just past, it’s a good time to talk about scary stuff. We’re not talking about <I>Saw</I> or <I>The Grudge</I>, here, but the kind of scare-mongering that our elected officials choose to do. You know, the "yellow alert" kind of scary.
Researchers from the GSF-National Research Centre for Environment and Health in Neuherberg, Germany released some disturbing findings last week: The amount of time commuters spend in traffic could actually increase their risk of heart attack.
While no one questions that conservation efforts have made the bald eagle’s recovery possible, even the environmental community is split on whether delisting the bird is a good idea…
Two high-level commissions have issued a clear message in the past year: Americans are unintentionally destroying the oceans through pollution, over-development and over-fishing. These reports have generated a tidal wave of marine metaphors, with commentators talking about "a sea change" or efforts to "smooth troubled waters." Now ocean advocates are organizing to turn words into action.
