On January 30, an estimated 100,000 cubic meters of polluted mud and wastewater escaped from a break in the dam of the Baia Mare gold mine in Northwest Romania, and spilled into the adjacent Lapus River. From there, it swept through the Somes and the Tisza Rivers, crossed the border into Hungary, flowed into the […]
Regulation of air pollution has been a constant battleground since the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, with environmentalists often fighting smokestack utilities (see "Blue Skies," cover story, November/December 1999). Now, imminent victory may turn into defeat as the Bush administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposes to weaken strong guidelines adopted under President Clinton.
New York City’s recycling program has suffered the biggest setback since its inception in 1989. In mid-June, at the 11th hour in budget negotiations, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council agreed to suspend the collection of plastics for one year and glass for two years, saving the city $45 million for the next two […]
As natural foods consumers get more adventurous in their eating habits, the organic herb and spice trade is heating up. Several companies are building a market for pesticide-free seasonings, which were difficult or impossible to obtain just four or five years ago. And these companies are going further by creating sustainable agriculture programs that allow […]
WIC, A Federal Food Program, Gets Supplemental Common Sense.
A single hot dog wrapper might not seem like much, but multiply it by the 26 million frankfurters consumed at major league baseball stadiums in 2002, add all the other junk generated by 68 million or so fans, and you get enough trash—about 34 million tons—to, well
fill a stadium.
Forget about Ralph Nader. The Green Party candidate to watch this fall is Jonathan Carter, who’s running for governor in Maine. It’s not that Carter is a household name nationally like Nader became two years ago. What makes Carter important around the country is that he is the first Green to get public financing for […]
Three quarters of Americans get their news primarily from television—if it’s not on the tube, for most people it isn’t happening at all. That’s what makes environmental programming all the more important. And that where Ecology Communications comes in. Courtesy of Ecology Communications Environmental programming doesn’t have much of a place on ratings-obsessed network television, […]
WIC, A Federal Food Program, Gets Supplemental Common Sense.
Przewalski horses or, to use their Mongolian name, Takhi, are the world’s only verifiably wild horses, a sub-species genetically distinct from any other equine. By 1945, only 12 survived, hunted nearly to extinction for their meat. Add to this Mongolia’s brutal winters, scorching summers, sandstorms, wolf predation and pursuit by collectors and their near-demise is […]
