As fuel prices skyrocket across the country, owners of vehicles at both ends of the fuel efficiency spectrum are making political statements simply by driving around town. On one extreme is GM’s Hummer H2, weighing in at over 6,000 pounds and guzzling gas at a rate of 10-13 miles per gallon. On the other are the compact Japanese hybrids by Toyota and Honda, which top out at a whopping 60 miles per gallon.
The European Environment Agency, the environmental oversight body of the European Union, released a report last week critical of how many member countries have not kept their promises regarding curbing emissions and remediating environmental problems.
An analysis by the Associated Press has found that a dozen big oil companies–several with White House ties–control more acreage of federal oil and gas leases than they are allowed by law.
Despite rebounding populations, 26 species of Pacific salmon will continue to be classified as threatened or endangered, according to NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency overseeing salmon recovery efforts. The agency is also recommending re-listing an additional run, the Lower Columbia Coho, which had been removed from protection in 2001.
If you want the environmental movement’s take on the Bush administration, go no further than <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1578051096/qid%3D1086378064/sr%3D2-1/ref%3Dsr%5F2%5F1/002-7162455-7362444">Strategic Ignorance</a> (Sierra Club Books, $24.95), written by Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope and Sierra magazine senior editor Paul Rauber.
In an effort to reform logging practices in Canada’s 1.4 billion acre boreal forest, environmentalists are asking consumer products manufacturers and retailers to buy only wood, pulp and paper from logging companies certified as sustainable extractors.
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."
