Currents

London’s "red" mayor, Ken Livingston, was widely believed to have gone "too far" a year ago when he announced a plan to hit commuters with a special congestion charge every time they entered the central city.

This week’s column consists of brief excerpts from just a day or two of the anti-Bush press releases, op-eds and news stories that cross my desk. As many commentators have pointed out, the Bush environmental policy is rarely fully visible. To understand all its scorched-earth implications, you have to read the fine print in thick government regulations, Presidential orders and agency filings. But poring over that material is exactly what some dedicated environmentalists do.

Environmentalists were optimistic last week that a new federal report acknowledging that emissions from automobiles and power plants have contributed to warmer temperatures in North America since 1950 would lead to a policy shift by the Bush administration on global warming. But despite the report, a White House spokesperson reiterated that President Bush still believes that the connection between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming is inconclusive, and that voluntary reductions are sufficient for the time being.

The National Park Service believes that pollution from Denver and its suburbs is taking a toll on the fragile ecosystems of nearby Rocky Mountain National Park. If left unchecked, ecologists worry that effects similar to those of acid rain will wreak havoc on the park’s alpine environments.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is supporting proposed state legislation calling for the addition of solar energy systems to one million homes across California by 2017 to save electricity and cut pollution.

Last week, the U.S. Forest Service approved another timber sale in an area previously protected from logging by the controversial Clinton-era "roadless rule." Both of the new timber sales are to take place in Southeast Alaska, where dwindling natural resources and a sluggish economy have conspired to drive unemployment rates to unprecedented highs.

The Bush administration continues to stonewall on the subject of reducing mercury emissions, even though the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator, Michael Leavitt, admitted August 24 that fish in almost all of the country’s rivers and streams are heavily dosed with the toxic heavy metal.

The rock piles outside the Western Mineral Products plant were too good to pass up. "We all played over there," recalls Kevin Reich, who moved to the neighborhood as a sixth-grader in 1979. But the rock piles were the by-product of processing vermiculite ore mined by W.R. Grace & Company in Libby, Montana, and they’re now known to contain asbestos.

It has never been easier to fly. Internet-based services and third-party affiliates like Travelocity.com and CheapTickets.com now offer plane tickets at all-time lows, conveniently purchased with a simple click of the mouse. While these fares may seem like a dream come true for low-budget travelers, the resulting surge in air traffic carries with it major environmental costs.

Seahorses may have the best love lives of any fish in the ocean. These delicate, swirled-tail members of the <I>syngnathid</I> family (pipefish, sea dragons) are frequently depicted in mythology, rapturously entwined. But this millennia-old dance may soon be over, as seahorses are increasingly endangered.