Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him

By Andrew C. Revkin
The New York Times
January 29, 2006

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

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Study Shows Only Six Nations Achieved Environmental Goals

By Feclity Barringer
The New York Times
January 23, 2006

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 – A pilot, nation-by-nation study of environmental performance shows that just six nations – led by New Zealand, followed by five from northern Europe – have achieved 85 percent success in meeting a set of critical environmental goals ranging from clean drinking water and low ozone levels to sustainable fisheries and low greenhouse-gas emissions.

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Going organic

Urban Harvest expert shares tips for growing healthier veggies

By Kathy Huber
Houston Chronicle
Jan. 20, 2006

Exercise and eat healthy food.

Want to check off both of these perennial New Year’s resolutions? Plant an organic vegetable garden. Nurseries are stocking shelves with a pantry of options such as broccoli, lettuce and kohlrabi, with tomato transplants soon to follow.

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GM crops created superweed, say scientists

Modified rape crosses with wild plant to create tough pesticide-resistant strain

Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Guardian
Monday July 25, 2005

Modified genes from crops in a GM crop trial have transferred into local wild plants, creating a form of herbicide-resistant “superweed”, the Guardian can reveal.

The cross-fertilisation between GM oilseed rape, a brassica, and a distantly related plant, charlock, had been discounted as virtually impossible by scientists with the environment department. It was found during a follow up to the government’s three-year trials of GM crops which ended two years ago.

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In Oregon, Thinking Local

By Marian Burros
The New York Times
January 4, 2006

Six years ago “organic” was the next big thing in grocery shopping, but the term has begun to lose its luster. It has been co-opted by agribusiness, which has succeeded in watering down the restrictions of the definition. Today “local” and “sustainable” are the new culinary buzzwords.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the six New Seasons markets in and around Portland, Ore. At New Seasons, “homegrown” is not only the coin of the realm, it’s the heavily promoted mantra.

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The Greening of Goldman Sachs

One of the world’s leading investment banks concedes there are real financial costs to ignoring the environment — and they don’t intend to get stuck paying them.

Continue reading The Greening of Goldman Sachs (external link)