Environment
Greening the Ghetto
Can a remedy serve for both global warming and poverty?
A few months ago, Van Jones, the founder and president of a group called Green for All, went to visit New Bedford, Massachusetts. His first stop of the day was the public library, where someone had assembled an audience of about thirty high-school dropouts. They leaned back in their chairs, hands in the pockets of their oversized sweatshirts.
Wind, Waves, and Watts
The steady, strong winds over the Atlantic off New England have attracted another developer interested in harnessing them for power generation.
Curbs May Be Eased on Paving in Forests
Los Angeles - The Bush administration appears poised to push through a change in U.S. Forest Service agreements that would make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions.
Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who heads the Forest Service, last week signaled his intent to formalize the controversial change before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. As a candidate, Obama campaigned against the measure in Montana,
Why Obama's Green Jobs Plan Might Work
Hemlock, Michigan - While Detroit's automakers struggle to rebuild their sputtering operations, the key to jump-starting Michigan's economy may lie 80 miles northwest of the Motor City.
Climate Change Policies Failing, NASA Scientist Warns Obama
Award-winning researcher James Hansen says new president's rhetoric must be backed by action.
Current approaches to deal with climate change are ineffectual, one of the world's top climate scientists said Thursday in a personal new year appeal to Barack Obama and his wife Michelle on the urgent need to tackle global warming.
With less than three weeks to go until Obama's inauguration, Prof James Hansen, head of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, asked
Idaho Senator Larry Craig Seeks $3 Million for Dams and Reservoirs
A giant public lands bill shelved until next year includes a proposal to study possible dam and reservoir projects in Idaho.
Republican Sen. Larry Craig is stepping down from the U.S.
EPA: Rivers High in Arsenic, Heavy Metals After Sludge Spill
Kingston, Tennessee - The Environmental Protection Agency has found high levels of arsenic and heavy metals in two rivers in central Tennessee that are near the site of a spill that unleashed more than a billion gallons of coal waste.
The agency said it found "several heavy metals" in the water in levels that are slightly above safe drinking-water standards but "below concentrations" known to be harmful to humans.
"The one exception may be arsenic," the agency said in a letter to an affected community.
EPA: Rivers High in Arsenic, Heavy Metals After Sludge Spill
Kingston, Tennessee - The Environmental Protection Agency has found high levels of arsenic and heavy metals in two rivers in central Tennessee that are near the site of a spill that unleashed more than a billion gallons of coal waste.
The agency said it found "several heavy metals" in the water in levels that are slightly above safe drinking-water standards but "below concentrations" known to be harmful to humans.
"The one exception may be arsenic," the agency said in a letter to an affected community.
California Sues Federal Government Over Changes in Endangered Species Act
California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown filed suit against the federal government Tuesday, charging that a recent rule change by the Bush administration illegally gutted provisions of the Endangered Species Act, essentially quashing the role of science in decisions made by federal agencies.
California Sues Federal Government Over Changes in Endangered Species Act
California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown filed suit against the federal government Tuesday, charging that a recent rule change by the Bush administration illegally gutted provisions of the Endangered Species Act, essentially quashing the role of science in decisions made by federal agencies.
California Sues Federal Government Over Changes in Endangered Species Act
California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown filed suit against the federal government Tuesday, charging that a recent rule change by the Bush administration illegally gutted provisions of the Endangered Species Act, essentially quashing the role of science in decisions made by federal agencies.
Think of the Economy as a Subsidiary of the Environment
Jacqueline McGlade, a British scientist, directs the European Environment Agency (EEA), based in Denmark. The EEA independently studies the state of the environment within the European Union and evaluates the public policies conducted there for the European Commission and Parliament and the Member States.
Moose Are Roaming Right Out of Existence
In the Upper Midwest, the animals are dying off in startling numbers. Biologists blame global warming.
Chicago - It wasn't long ago that thousands of moose roamed northwest Minnesota. But in two decades, the number of antlered, bony-kneed beasts from the North Woods has plummeted from 4,000 to fewer than a hundred.
They didn't move away.
Californians Shape Up as Force on Environmental Policy
California Democrats will assume pivotal roles in the new Congress and White House, giving the state an outsize influence over federal policy and increasing the likelihood that its culture of activist regulation will be imported to Washington.
Drillers Eye Oil Reserves off California Coast
The federal government is taking steps that may open California's fabled coast to oil drilling in as few as three years, an action that could place dozens of platforms off the Sonoma, Mendocino and Humboldt coasts, and raises the specter of spills, air pollution and increased ship traffic into San Francisco Bay.
Millions of acres of oil deposits, mapped in the 1980s when then-Interior Secretary James Watt and Energy Secretary Donald Hodel pushed for California exploration, lie a few miles from the forested North Coast and near the mouth
Tennessee Sludge Spill Estimate Grows to One Billion Gallons
Estimates for the amount of thick sludge that gushed from a Tennessee coal plant last week have tripled to more than a billion gallons, as cleanup crews try to remove the goop from homes and railroads and halt its oozing into an adjacent river.
Energy Dispute Over Rockies Riches
Salt Lake City - A titanic battle between the West's two traditional power brokers - Big Oil and Big Water - has begun.
Police Detain Brazil Rancher Linked to Stang Death
Brasilia, Brazil - Brazilian police on Friday detained a rancher suspected in the slaying of rain forest activist Dorothy Stang for allegedly illegally acquiring titles to land the U.S. nun died trying to defend.
The detention of Regivaldo Galvao at his home in the Amazon state of Para could lead to the reopening of the case in the death of Stang, who was shot in 2005 amid a dispute with ranchers over land she wanted brought under federal protection.
The Tennessee Coal Ash Disaster
In Harriman, Tenn., flooding from fly ash sludge on Monday
after a storage pond wall broke. (Photo: J. Miles Carey / Knoxville
News Sentinel / AP)
Core of the Problem
The National Ice Core Laboratory tries to answer one question: As the Earth warms, will sea levels rise three feet? Or 30? Or even more?
I really notice the chill in the air when my mechanical pencil freezes - or maybe it has just run out of lead. But it is undeniably cold, 36 degrees below zero Celsius, plus or minus.
