If the U.S. is to participate at the first meeting for an historic international treaty to ban or severely restrict a dozen of the world’s most hazardous chemicals, Congress must pass legislation enabling it to do so within the next several weeks.
Grist Magazine reports that most mainstream environmentalists are opposed to the recently announced presidential bid by Ralph Nader, citing his spoiler role in the 2000 election as well as the overwhelming priority of unseating George W. Bush in 2004.
A recently uncovered Pentagon report warns that over the next 20 years climate change could lead to nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting across the world. The report was released internally four months ago, but was leaked to the media only last week.
Despite outcries about deficits, Congress is debating a massive $318 billion highway bill. This is the same Congress that routinely attempts to defund Amtrak, which has absorbed a tiny fraction of road spending. Congress wouldn’t even think of passing such a budget buster in an election year were it not for the enormous highway construction contracts that land like fat golden goose eggs in lawmakers" districts.
A Radioactive Nightmare in Concord, Massachusetts The waitress at the ice cream shop in Concord, Massachusetts was surprised. "A Superfund site?" she asked, incredulous, "on Main Street?" Not just a Superfund site—a Superfund site that a cleanup contractor has dubbed "near the tip of the peak in terms of [cleanup] difficulty." A radioactive Superfund site. […]
Was Global Warming Responsible for the Deadly Heat? By the end of Europe’s staggering summer heat wave, Budapest’s ornate bridges were looking strange. They stood high above the water, their supporting foundations exposed, looking as if they were all standing on tiptoes. Rarely seen boulders jutted out from the brown surface of the Danube and […]
The Bush Administration Packs the Courts with Anti-Environmental Judges For more than 30 years, environmental laws ranging from the Clean Air Act to the Endangered Species Act have provided a formidable weapon for activists and ordinary citizens trying to protect the environment. While the environment does not always prevail in court, litigation has become an […]
In a triumph of Bush administration doublespeak, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently cautioned women and children to watch their consumption of fish because of mercury contamination, while at the same time announcing plans to ease restrictions on the very mercury emissions that caused the problem in the first place.
Makers of food products containing hemp won a victory last week in federal appeals court. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned a federal rule by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that would have banned the sale of foods containing sterilized hemp seeds and oils containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), well-known as the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
The New York Times reports that critics of the U.S. Forest Service are calling for the agency to allow more wild fires in unpopulated areas to burn without intervention as an ecologically sound method of clearing downed timber and brush while preserving resources for more threatening blazes.
