The moral environment.

• Author: Prugh, Thomas
• Position: EDITORIAL - Environmentalists and religious conservatives - Editorial

There's far too much mercury in fish; emissions of smog precursor chemicals are up; and the rate of increase in atmospheric C[O.sub.2] concentrations is accelerating. Russia just ratified the Kyoto Protocol, but the Bush administration, long opposed to serious action on climate change, reportedly tried to keep any action steps out of a recent eight-nation report on the rapid warming of the Arctic.

You wouldn't have known it from the U.S. election campaigns, but the world still has environmental problems (the list above is just recent headline-makers). The need for action is more urgent than ever. In the United States, though, the...