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Duluth, Minn. Duluth has become the third U.S. city to become an Eco Municipality. Ashland and Washburn enacted the Swedish-born sustainability program last year. The Duluth City Council passed a resolution last month pledging to move toward four basic principles of sustainability: use fewer natural resources, use fewer man-made or synthetic chemicals, cause no additional degradation to the Earth and meet all human needs.

Author says CU prof used picture of hers without permission... The photograph of a child's grave in University of Colorado ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill's 2004 book about Indian boarding schools jumped out at Brenda Child. That's because Child, a member of the Red Lake Ojibwa tribe, took the picture and published it in 1998 in her own award-winning book on the same subject. "I was surprised that was there because he's never sought my permission to use it and it appeared without my knowing that it would be in his book," said Child, a University of Minnesota faculty member...

A mother that gives violin lessons will face trial in the northwestern US state of Washington on charges she was an environmental terrorist, prosecutors said. Briana Waters, 30, of the famously liberal California city of Berkeley, has pleaded innocent in a Seattle federal court that she that fire bombed a horticulture center in 2001. A US district court judge allowed Waters to remain free pending the start of her trial in June, but ordered that she turn in her passport and have her whereabouts monitored electronically. Waters was the first person charged in connection with an attack that destroyed the...

Three eco-terrorists were sentenced Friday to federal prison for a series of firebombings that put towns in the Sierra foothills on edge. Ryan Daniel Lewis, 22, the alleged leader of the group, was sentenced to six years, and two sisters - Eva Rose Holland, 26, and Lili Marie Holland, 21 - were each handed two-year prison terms. Prosecutors alleged Lewis recruited the Holland sisters and Jeremiah Dean Colcleasure, 24, on Christmas Eve 2004 to help him burn down two unoccupied upscale homes in Lincoln, a Sacramento suburb, in the name of the Earth Liberation Front. The FBI calls the ELF...

The good news: a federal grand jury in Eugene, Oregon, has indicted 11 people on charges that they committed acts of domestic terrorism on behalf of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. Moreover, now one of the FBI's "highest domestic terrorism priorities," according to director Robert S. Mueller III, is to prosecute people who commit crimes "in the name of animal rights or the environment." Nevertheless, it remains worrisome that we still dismiss such terrorists as deranged individuals who pervert the ideology of environmentalism. Even more worrisome is that few of us intellectually grasp, and then rise...

For years, environmentalists have petitioned government officials about preserving open space and designing eco-friendly neighborhoods, but it turns out that cost-conscious developers should be the ones advocating change. New research reveals that building "conservation communities" can be 15 to 54 percent cheaper than traditional suburban developments, according to Wisconsin-based Applied Ecological Services (AES). The difference between traditional and conservational development is in the design principles. Typical subdivisions tend to have wider streets, turf lawns, gutters and storm sewers, but those cause less water to be absorbed into the ground and more runoff, which can erode soil and pollute local water...

AXcess News) Washington - Max Keiser is a new kind of terrorist. He uses the Internet and boycotts to manipulate stock prices. In that way he forces corporations to comply with his brand of radical environmentalism and Sustainable Development. He puts his hands around corporate throats and squeezes until they comply with his demands. Max Keiser and his ilk hate business and they hate free enterprise and are using these tactics to redistribute wealth and cause chaos in the market place. Keiser's operation is called "KarmaBanque." That new age-focused name alone should give readers an idea of the wacky worldview...

In 1973, the American bald eagle population had drastically declined. Populations of American alligators, humpback whales and other landmark species were also diminishing, and America needed to act. In response, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The law was supposed to protect imperiled species on the brink of extinction. However, more than three decades later, the Endangered Species Act has failed to live up to its noble expectations. Today, nearly 1,300 species have been afforded the law's protections, yet, just 10 species have been taken off the list due to recovery. The truth be known, not one single...

It was a first for veteran anglers at one of the Allegheny River's hottest spots. They were being asked to donate their fish to science. On a recent Saturday, a cadre of fishermen at the Highland Park Dam filled buckets with white bass and channel catfish so that Dan Volz, a public health expert, can tell them someday soon whether what they catch is loaded with heavy metals and estrogen-like compounds, or chemicals that mimic the effect of estrogen, a hormone produced by the body and needed for the development and growth of female sex organs. snip While there are...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed yesterday that it will propose removing threatened-species protection from the marbled murrelet, a small seabird at the center of battles over logging in the Northwest. The proposal, to be formally made by the end of the year, will start a yearlong evaluation of the status of the bird. The marbled murrelet lives its life at sea but uses big old trees near the coast for nesting, laying a single egg in a mossy depression on a large branch. The proposal is based on the idea that the 17,000 to...

Future drought is projected to occur under warmer temperature conditions as climate change progresses, referred to here as global-change-type drought, yet quantitative assessments of the triggers and potential extent of drought-induced vegetation die-off remain pivotal uncertainties in assessing climate-change impacts. Of particular concern is regional-scale mortality of overstory trees, which rapidly alters ecosystem type, associated ecosystem properties, and land surface conditions for decades. Here, we quantify regional-scale vegetation die-off across southwestern North American woodlands in 2002-2003 in response to drought and associated bark beetle infestations. At an intensively studied site within the region, we quantified that after 15 months of...

POLSON - Wednesday, Nov. 14, 1792: Traveling the borderland between modern Montana and the endless expanse of what's now known as southern Alberta. Still smoking all around, the explorer notes: ”grass having been lately burnt,“ ”grass nearly all burnt,“ ”grass yet burning.“ For days, his journals are filled with fire, no end in sight. Yet there hadn't been a lightning strike in who knows how many weeks. When Hudson's Bay Co. fur trader Peter Fidler first laid eyes on the wide wild West, it seemed to him a pristine wilderness, a garden shaped from on high and never yet bent...

There may be a surprise in store for environmentalits - removing cattle grazing could actually be damaging to the environment. An article published in the latest issue of Conservation Biology finds that cattle grazing plays an important role in maintaining wetland habitat necessary for some endangered species. Removing cattle from grazing lands in the Central Valley of California could, inadvertently, degrade the vernal pool habitat of fairy shrimp and tiger salamanders. Cattle grazing influences the rates of evaporation which work together with climate to determine the depth and duration of wetland flooding. Cattle have been grazing in the land for...

USFWS Contacts: Al Pfister(970)243-2778 x 29 or Diane Katzenberger (303)236-4578 The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced the withdrawal of the Southern Rocky Mountain population of the Boreal Toad (Bufo boreas boreas) from the list of species being considered for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Service has determined that listing this population of the Boreal Toad at this time is not warranted because it does not constitute a distinct population segment as defined by the ESA. Although no further action will result from this finding, the Service will continue to seek new information on the taxonomy,...

Environmentalists proposed a $404 million global action plan yesterday at a conference in Washington D. C. to protect and preserve amphibian species. The conference came in response to a study last year that revealed one-third of all amphibian species face a high risk of extinction. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Conservation International joined other wildlife groups to plan further research studies and long term initiatives to protect amphibian habitats. Next is the task of securing funds for the projects from private institutions and individual donors. "The frogs are trying to tell us something," said Andrew...

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The new version of the Endangered Species Act approved by the House is unlikely to pass muster in the Senate, at least right away. Critics worry especially about a murky provision that could pay landowners tens of millions of dollars in damages for property devalued by restrictions due to rare critters or plants. Nonetheless, sponsors' success in getting this far and winning bipartisan backing shows widespread recognition of problems in one of the nation's most venerable environmental laws. In a barometer of emotions flowing on the issue, no fewer than four Old Testament books (Genesis, Psalms,...

Expecting to be fed, boreal toads at an Alamosa hatchery turn toward the photographer. Scientists say they now won t have to get special permits to study the creatures, speeding research on a fungus decimating the population. (Special to The Denver Post / Mark H. Hunter) Colorado's boreal toad was removed as a candidate for the federal endangered-species list Wednesday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That could be good news for ski-slope developers - and maybe even for the toad itself. An exotic fungus that is hammering the warty, high-elevation amphibian made it a candidate for endangered-species protection...

A lizard known for its dinosaur-like features is back in line for endangered species protection, according to backers of the tiny, desert reptile. A federal judge in Arizona on Tuesday ruled the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service erred when it dropped the Flat-tail Horned Lizard from consideration as a "threatened" species eligible for special legal protection. In a 15-page ruling, District Court Judge Neil Wake said the government "violated the Endangered Species Act" by failing to evaluate the impact of habitat loss on the species when it withdrew a proposal to list it as threatened. The ruling, according to environmentalists...

You don’t have to be a conspiracy buff to think the recent spate of incidents at BP facilities was maybe a little much to comfortably call coincidence. The FBI’s not going near that, but did confirm it was conducting what it called routine investigations of the incidents. Bureau officials said there was no evidence or indication that any of the incidents might involve deliberate acts, and that such probes had become routine since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. BP’s Texas City oil refinery and a subsidiary’s chemical plant at Chocolate Bayou have been at the center of six large incidents in...

Group Aims to Save Rattlesnakes in New York Park Westport, New York: The ponytailed environmentalist hiked down the ridge, over the gray rocks and matted brown leaves, stopped among the hardwoods, and said, "Right down the side, it's prime country here." The warm, southeast-facing rock cliffs overlooking Lake Champlain mark the northern limit of the Timber Rattlesnake's habitat. Jaime Ethier, in boots and jeans, was bushwhacking from Champlain Palisades down to the pebbled shores of the lake - through terrain where he wouldn't see a coiled dark snake unless he nearly stepped on it. The Adirondack Council conservation director appeared...