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Fantasy Islands

California has permanently banned fishing in 175 square miles of ocean around the Channel Islands, creating a network of marine reserves that will enable a wide range of species to recover from decades of overfishing. In the next year or two, the U.S. government will decide whether to expand the network of reserves into federal […]

Touching News

A whopping 83 percent of the surface of the Earth is dedicated to human activities — farming, mining, fishing, or just plain old living — according to a report released this week by the Wildlife Conservation Society and Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network. Human use leaves wildlife with just a fraction […]

Hawaii G-O!

There’s no shortage of sunlight in Hawaii — so why is there a shortage of solar energy? That’s the question Ed Smeloff and David Hochschild would like to answer. The two alternative-energy advocates pioneered the trailblazing $100 million solar bond initiative passed by the city of San Francisco last year; as cofounders of Vote Solar, […]

When the Fish and Chips Are Down

Farmed salmon is coming under fire for the dangers it may pose to human health and the environment. A government study in the U.K. has found that salmon from fish farms is the most contaminated food sold by British supermarkets, beating out all other seafood, as well as meats and vegetables. Every sample of farmed […]

San Choakin’ Valley

A coalition of environmental organizations is suing the U.S. EPA today for failing to clean up the air in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Blackened by dust, smoke, and other pollutants, the region’s air is some of the nation’s worst — but neither the state nor federal government has come up with a workable plan to […]

Na’Taki Osborne, National Wildlife Federation

Na’Taki Osborne is the national leadership development coordinator for the National Wildlife Federation. She is also a fellow with the Environmental Leadership Program and cofounder of the Center for Environmental Public Awareness, a consulting organization that supports community groups working to achieve environmental justice. Monday, 21 Oct 2002 ATLANTA, Ga. “I woke up this morning […]

On Guard

An effort to beef up safety at U.S. nuclear power plants by requiring guards to work 12-hour shifts instead of eight may be backfiring: The guards, who have been working the longer shifts since Sept. 11, 2001, report that they are tired, prone to error, and, well, in a bad mood. The long hours have […]

Drain Canada

In response to the escalating energy demands of the United States, Canada has increased its oil production by nearly 50 percent in the past decade and its natural gas production by more than two-thirds. According to a report by the Sierra Club of Canada and the Natural Resources Defense Council, more than half of Canada’s […]

Sandy Ego

Southern California has finally come up with a plan to reduce its reliance on the Colorado River and keep water flowing to fast-growing San Diego. Since the 1930s, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and California have had an agreement to divvy up water supplies from the Colorado River, but California has guzzled more […]

High-drogen

The European Union is homing in on hydrogen as a way to meet its ambitious goals of generating 22 percent of its electricity and 12 percent of all energy from renewables by 2010. Energy independence is increasingly urgent for Europe, which imports a whopping 70 percent of its oil and gas from foreign sources, including […]