Wednesday, 28 Mar 2001

While You're at It, Could You Repeal the Geneva Convention?

U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman said yesterday that the Kyoto treaty on climate change was dead and that the European Union and Japan would have to take a new approach if they wanted to reach an agreement on the issue. She said, "No, we have no interest in implementing that treaty." The White House has been exploring how the U.S. can legally withdraw its signature from the landmark international agreement reached in 1997. Former President Clinton signed the treaty, but never submitted it to the Senate for ratification, where it almost certainly would have been killed. Under the treaty's terms, the U.S. would have to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Whitman's comments will likely stun European officials, who in the last week have practically begged President Bush to restart talks on implementing Kyoto. Earlier this month, Whitman signed a formal declaration with environmental ministers from other industrialized nations pledging to move forward on the treaty.

De Train, De Train

Activists eluded thousands of police last night and halted a train carrying nuclear waste in northern Germany by cementing themselves to the tracks. The incident was one of many protests against the transport of the waste, which originated from German nuclear reactors and was sent to a French reprocessing center in the 1990s. Officials from the two countries suspended shipments back to Germany in 1998 because of concerns about leaks, but resumed them this week, promising to tighten safety precautions. Activists at other points along the train's route last night fired flares and threw stones at police, who tried to disperse the crowds with water cannons.

Resign Yourself

U.S. Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck resigned yesterday, expressing concerns that the Bush administration was shifting the agency's priorities back toward logging and away from conservation. Chris Wood, a former top aide, said Dombeck decided to resign after administration officials told him they wanted to move "in a different direction." In his resignation letter, Dombeck defended rules approved by former President Clinton to ban road-building on 58.5 million acres of national forestland and a plan to protect old-growth forests. He urged Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman to "withstand political pressure" and stand by the agency's conservation initiatives.

Bus-ted!

India's Supreme Court this week stuck by its 1998 decision to force buses in Delhi to convert from diesel to natural gas, but extended the deadline for the switchover by six months, until the end of September. The court added a caveat, however: Bus operators can only take advantage of the extension if they can prove by Saturday that they intend to meet the new deadline. The court's moves came in response to complaints by the Delhi government, which said it would not be able to convert its 2,000 buses by the original deadline of the end of this week. The Tata Energy Research Institute said that it is unlikely that the city or private bus owners, who operate about 10,000 of the vehicles, will be able to convert all the buses by September.

Shell Shock

A California condor reintroduced into the wild has laid an egg, suggesting that the great birds may be able to recover from the brink of extinction. The condor, the largest bird of prey in North America, numbered only 27 when wildlife officials began a captive breeding program in 1987. Despite successes in captive breeding, scientists had no evidence until last weekend that the 49 condors reintroduced into the wild in Arizona, California, and Utah had begun to procreate. Spotted by telescope in the Grand Canyon, egg No. 1 is cracked -- but biologists say it is normal for first eggs to be cracked and that the parents will likely learn how to lay and care for their next egg.