Overturning its six-year old ban on genetically engineered foods, the European Union (EU) last week changed course and approved the import of an insect-resistant strain of corn developed by Swiss company Syngenta.
Last week an international treaty mandating the phase-out of a dozen highly toxic chemicals, including DDT and PCBs, took effect with 50 signatories despite lack of formal involvement by the United States.
Maybe you’ve already seen The Day After Tomorrow, with its shock-&-awe images of Manhattan in a deep freeze & tornadoes bearing down on LA?
Last week, Judge Adalberto Jordan of Miami’s U.S. District Court cited insufficient evidence as the reason for throwing out charges that Greenpeace violated an obscure 1872 maritime law when its activists boarded a ship transporting illegally exported mahogany from Brazil in April 2002. The activists intended to hang a banner from the ship reading: "President Bush: Stop Illegal Logging."
James Lovelock, the renowned British scientist who first postulated in his Gaia theory that Earth itself is a single living organism, has come out strongly in favor of a massive expansion of nuclear power throughout the world as a salvo against impending global warming.
As the 2004 campaign heats up, Theresa Heinz Kerry, wife of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, is becoming overtly critical of the Bush administration’s environmental policies.
Word leaked out last week that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is ready to submit a formal proposal to take grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park off the endangered species list next year. According to agency officials, recovery efforts for Yellowstone’s grizzlies, which began in earnest in the 1980s, are now complete, with the population having doubled in the last two decades.
In a curious turn of political events, President Bush has been lambasting Democrats for playing politics over oil. The issue in question is whether or not to open America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help offset skyrocketing prices at the gas pump for consumers.
"The natural building movement is where organic food was 20 years ago," says Joe Kennedy, co-editor of the new book <a href="http://www.newsociety.com/bookid/3697">The Art of Natural Building</a>. "Now we have exponential growth, and we’re riding an intense wave."
My town celebrated Earth Day about a month late, because the committee was waiting for a good date to use one of the local schools. Better late than never, I say. There were displays from solar groups, feel-good literature from the utility companies, and a surprisingly strong showing from the fuel-cell people, including a display from Avalence (launched by one of the founders of E), makers of a user-friendly hydrogen filler. There were also things for kids to do, and a pack of eco-conscious costumed figures.
