When people go on a low-carb diet, they do so to trim down and get healthy. Similarly, the European Union's own version of a low- carb diet, that is a diet to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, was expected to both trim pollution and create a healthy environment. Unfortunately, according to an article appearing on Tech Central Station, it has done neither. Indeed, Europe's electricity prices have skyrocketed over fifteen percent since last December, and a number of manufacturing firms which rely on cheap electricity are contemplating closing down and moving to the Orient. With emissions therefore likely to [...]

Could cheetahs, lions, and African elephants one day roam the American plains? Well that may sound like a strange idea, but not according to some extreme conservationists, who have published a paper in Nature magazine suggesting just such a wild plan. These conservationists want to create vast ecological parks with large mammals, mostly from Africa, as a way to revitalize certain habitats, and even create eco-tourism and land-management jobs in struggling rural areas of the Great Plains and Southwest. They say large tracts of private land are the most promising place to start, and a first pilot project to [...]

The Millennium Challenge Corporation, or MCC, was established as a government corporation to disperse grants to promote economic freedom in developing countries. But according to Isaac Post of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the MCC, through misguided notions of sustainable development, is not achieving its goals. Comments Post: "The MCC should abandon its search for a measure of the sustainable management of natural resources, as its existing indicator of economic freedom already does this. But if the MCC requires an indicator, then it should adopt one that measures private property rights. These create an incentive for resource owners to consider [...]

Concerns about the health risks of Teflon were heightened when the chemical used to produce it caused liver cancer in lab rats. But now, an independent study of people living near a plant that uses the chemical found no relationship to liver, kidney, or thyroid cancer. According to the Beacon Journal of Akron, Ohio, Dr. Edward Emmett of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine reviewed blood samples from nearly 400 Ohio residents who live across the river from a DuPont plant, and found no higher prevalence of cancer than that of residents in any other part of Ohio. [...]

Military training bases are the last place you'd expect endangered species to flourish, right? Well not according to leading ecologist Steven Warren of Colorado State University, who recently did a study of U.S. training bases in Germany, and surprisingly found them to be excellent habitat for many threatened species. According to [email protected], Warren determined that although the German bases represent less than 1% of the region's land, they contain 22% of its endangered species. This is because the land is uncultivated, but is also churned up by tank tracks and explosions. And that kind of land disturbance is just [...]

Is politics trumping science in the global warming debate? Well in January, a leading hurricane expert resigned from a top U.N. panel, charging that leaders were overstating the evidence to further a political agenda. Now, another prominent scientist has also resigned from an important government panel, making the same charge of politicized science. Roger Pielke, Sr., Colorado's state climatologist, resigned from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program due to controversies about satellite and weather balloon data. He complained of premature representations of a report being made to the media, and concluded that if these panels have no intention of [...]

What do you get when you mix 100,000 tons of potato peals with a little sawmill dust and some turkey manure?  Well, at least for some timber and farm companies in Colorado, you get an environmentally-beneficial sludge capable of cleaning up a very toxic material.  According to Biocycle magazine, recent research reveals that an enzyme exists in potatoes that is capable of neutralizing sulfuric acid – an acid which is particularly prevalent in mining operations and which, according to the EPA, pollutes over 40 percent of Colorado's rivers.  With this new sludge, not only will potato farmers be able [...]

In the 1990's, so-called smart growth policies became popular as an attempt to reduce suburban sprawl.  But according to a recent article by Jane Shaw and Kenneth Orski of the policy group, PERC, smart growth now seem to be in retreat.  Comments Shaw: "In Maryland, statewide plans to increase population densities ran into determined grassroots opposition, and local officials often viewed the state's efforts as too intrusive. In Loudoun County, Virginia -- a battleground over smart growth -- the state Supreme Court recently threw out zoning regulations that had blocked home building.  And even in Oregon, the tide seems [...]

There have been growing fears that air pollution in general, and high ozone levels in particular, were damaging the storied forests of Europe beyond repair.  But now comes word of a major study by the European Forests Institute that says these vast wooded areas are actually thriving.  Indeed, the study of 39 countries, covering forests from Portugal to Russia, showed that even though ozone levels are seven times higher than the alleged danger point, and trees in Europe should be suffering a 70 percent decline in growth, their health has improved and growth conditions seem to have increased almost [...]

Without a doubt, the melting glaciers of Mt. Kilimanjaro serve as one of the most public symbols for those concerned about global warming.  But is this valid?  Well not according to the Center for Science and Public Policy, which notes in a recent paper how the glacial retreat on Kilimanjaro is much more complex than the storytellers admit.  For starters, the melting of the Kilimanjaro ice field was recorded back in the mid to late 1800's, well before the buildup of greenhouse gases.  Secondly, satellite readings of Kilimanjaro and the surrounding region have shown a temperature decline since 1979, [...]

Global warming alarm was back in the news recently when the Natural Resources Defense Council claimed that hotter temperatures will soon lead to sharp rises in air pollution. But according to Joel Schwartz writing for Tech Central Station, these claims ignore some obvious facts. For starters, the NRDC used emissions levels from the mid-1990's to predict future smog, even though those levels have dropped by 25 to 50% over the last 10 years alone and will continue to plummet. But when you also consider the national average of smog alerts has also declined tremendously over recent decades during a [...]

Are our government's assumptions about the dangers of dioxin all wrong?  Maybe so, after an international team of researchers concluded that humans eliminate traces of dioxin from their bodies much faster than previously thought.  The researchers from Montreal, Milan, and the CDC studied blood samples from a select group of workers who had very high dioxin exposure decades ago.  They found that their actual exposure may have been underestimated by a factor of 10 times or more.  Since this means dioxin's cancer potency was overestimated by a similar amount, and is the cornerstone of the EPA's current assessment, this [...]

Are sprawling suburbs leading to sprawling waistlines?  Well the so-called smart growth movement would have you believe so, claiming that America's suburban life -- with its cars, strip malls, and lack of walkable communities -- is a cause of obesity.  But according to a Heritage Foundation article by Wendell Cox and Ronald Utt, there is little weight to this lean claim.  They note that in Chicago, city dwellers weigh a statistically insignificant average of only 15 ounces less than their suburbanite cousins, while in the walkable borough of the Bronx, New York, 24 percent of adults are obese, compared [...]

Is the so-called "precautionary principle" a benefit to society, as many in Europe are claiming?  Well not according to Dr. Cecile Philippe of the Molinari Economics Institute in Brussels, who believes it is actually a great danger to progress.  Comments Dr. Philippe: "By reversing the burden of proof, the precautionary principle means that any activity will be guilty of damaging the environment, and subject to prohibition, unless is can proven to be safe.  But instead of removing risk, this actually increases risk to individual prosperity.   Since the precautionary principle cannot remove all risks, but only suppress some while forcing [...]