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Largest Iraqi dam on verge of collapse, say U.S. officials
The largest dam in Iraq “is judged to have an unacceptable annual failure probability,” according to assessments by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In other words, the “most dangerous […]
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Pediatricians warn climate-change health effects worse for kids
Just in time for Halloween, there’s yet another danger to children for frazzled parents to fret about. For those of you keeping track at home, dangers include strangers, tainted candy, […]
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U.S. Supreme Court to hear appeal of Exxon Valdez damage award
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed this week to hear ExxonMobil’s appeal of the $2.5 billion in damages it was ordered to pay for the disastrous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. […]
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Russia’s environmental movement rocked by serious mommy issues
You thought there was dissent inside the U.S. environmental movement? Welcome to Russia, where last summer a band of 20 protestors outside a nuclear reprocessing plant was attacked by masked […]
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U.S. states face water shortages
The catastrophic California wildfires got all the press, but it’s worth paying attention to an equally intimidating but slower-moving threat: water shortages. From Georgia to Massachusetts, Florida to New York, […]
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Vicious attack ends up undermining Russian environmental movement
A vicious attack on anti-nuclear protesters in Russia this summer has had the unexpected outcome of undermining the country’s environmental movement, after the son of a high-profile green leader confessed […]
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Nearly one-third of world’s primates at risk of extinction, report says
About 29 percent of the world’s 394 primate species are at risk of extinction, according to a report by the World Conservation Union. Threats to primates include hunting for primate […]
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B.C. considers a carbon tax
In 1998, shortly after Sightline (then Northwest Environment Watch) published Tax Shift (PDF), Gordon Campbell, then BC's opposition leader, invited me for a sit-down to discuss the book. He had read it and said he loved it. At the time, the New Democratic BC government was gearing up to do a pilot tax shift, inspired by the book. It was also about to be routed in provincial elections, to be replaced by Campbell's Liberals.
Campbell said, "In our first term, we're not going to shift taxes. We're going to lower them. But in our second term, we might." I didn't put much stock in his words.
Maybe I should have.
Friday's Globe and Mail reports that Campbell's Finance Minister Carole Taylor is seriously considering introducing North America's first real carbon tax, paired with reduced income taxes. She calls it a "tax shift."
Imagine that.
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Fish living in trees and underwater pumpkin carving
... in his weekly radio address, President Bush spoke on conserving fisheries. "The most important thing is not the size of your catch but the enjoyment of the great outdoors," he said ...
... conservationists said that talks at a recent international convention devoted to bluefin tuna recovery were derailed by Japan, resulting in no meaningful progress ...
... an MIT researcher designed new equipment to gather scallops from the sea floor with hopes that it would be less damaging than the dredges in use now ...
... the U.S. Senate approved a resolution directing the government to negotiate an international agreement for managing fish stocks in the Arctic Ocean ...
... the U.S. Congress considered a bill that would reduce the debt of Caribbean nations that pledge to protect coral reefs and marine ecosystems, as well as forests ...
... scientists have discovered that the mangrove killifish, found in the Caribbean, can modify its biological makeup so it can breathe air and live in trees for months at a time ...
