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World Wanes

The World Summit on Sustainable Development opened today in Johannesburg, South Africa, with more than 40,000 delegates gathering to discuss issues such as water, energy, health, agriculture, and biodiversity. South African President Thabo Mbeki opened the 10-day summit by urging attendees to bridge the gap between “islands of wealth” and “a sea of poverty.” That’s […]

Euphrates Cats

The waters of the Euphrates River gave birth to civilization and are just as valuable today — but they are also in short supply, as people in Syria, Turkey, and Iraq battle for a share of the river. Similar struggles are taking place all over the world, from Texas to China, as water resources grow […]

Money Doesn’t Grow on Tree Cutting

Money talks. At least, that’s the hope of environmentalists in Texas, who are appealing to taxpayers’ economic self-interest in an effort to stop commercial logging in the state’s four national forests. After 15 years of failed efforts to stop the logging through legal action, the Sierra Club turned to a different tactic, commissioning and going […]

Up a Tree

When Julia Butterfly Hill did it, it was a novelty. Now, it seems, it’s becoming a trend: young people taking to the trees to fend off logging companies. From Santa Cruz, Calif., to the Pacific Northwest, dozens of tree-sitters are living in the canopy to protect old-growth forests from the axe — so many that […]

And other words from readers

  Re: Coolant Dear Editor: I am a big fan of Ask Umbra. I used to do a column like this for USA Today, and yours is much more interesting than mine was. (Of course, I was handicapped by being limited to one-syllable words.) But Umbra goofed a couple times in her first answer in […]

Tumucumaque and Stomachache

There’s good news and bad news from the Amazon. Good news first: The Brazilian government has announced the creation of the world’s largest tropical forest reserve — the 9,562,770-acre Tumucumaque National Park, in the northern Amazonian state of Amapa. The bad news is that even such a large park seems like a Band-Aid effort for […]

Chinese Checkmate

In a move that could further isolate the United States on environmental issues, China announced yesterday that its State Council is on the verge of approving the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The Chinese parliament would also need to ratify the treaty, but that body generally rubber-stamps decisions made by the State Council, where the […]

Hitting the Sack

In Ireland, the question “paper or plastic?” has become all but obsolete after the introduction last March of a tax on supermarket bags. Irish Environment Minister Martin Cullen announced this week that the tax has been highly successful, with the amount of plastic bags provided by grocery stores dropping 90 percent after the tax was […]

Fin-ished

By virtue of its name, the whale shark summons a ferocious mental image, something along the lines of Moby Dick meets Jaws. But in reality, the creature is a gentle, slow-moving fish. Unfortunately for the species, that means whale sharks are easily captured by fishers, who chop off their fins to supply a hungry Asian […]

Corn Bawl

In a slap in the face to the bioengineering industry, the government of Zambia has rejected thousands of tons of genetically modified corn offered as food aid to the starving nation. Instead, the country will buy conventional corn from Kenya and Tanzania, according to Zambian Finance Minister Emmanuel Kasonde. Kasonde declined to say how much […]