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Bread and Butterfly

Like a lot of Americans, millions of monarch butterflies spend their winters in Mexico. Trouble is, the Mexican government has been unable to protect the monarch’s forest habitat from illegal logging. Reasoning that illegal logging stems from necessity — the 200,000-odd largely impoverished people who live in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve clear the lands […]

Lack of Response Ability

The U.S. EPA is “not fully prepared” to handle a large-scale nuclear, biological, chemical, or radiological attack on the country, according to an internal assessment by the agency. The report was commissioned by EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman in response to the attacks of Sept. 11 and strongly suggests that if those attacks had involved […]

Plant Nein

A controversial decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service not to set aside protected areas known as “critical habitat” for eight imperiled plant species has been challenged by a federal judge in California. The ruling by Judge Irma Gonzalez was greeted triumphantly by environmentalists, although it merely orders the USFWS to reconsidered its position […]

Under Loch and Key

After 50 years of debate, Scotland will get its first-ever national park this month. The area around Loch Lomond, where the park will be established, attracts 5 million visitors annually but currently lacks an effective management structure to balance the area’s conflicting interests and protect the landscape and wildlife that are its main attraction. Establishment […]

Ken Norwick, electric vehicle advocate

Ken Norwick is a systems analyst and an electric vehicle advocate who converted his 1996 Saturn to electric power two years ago. Monday, 8 Jul 2002 CALGARY, Alberta, Canada I’m a programmer by way of occupation, but a “Curious George” by nature. I like to spend my free time out in my garage tinkering away. […]

Darwin’s Flinches

Just weeks after scientists found that an apparently harmless oil spill in the Galapagos Islands in January 2001 in fact led to a massive iguana die-off, another spill has tainted the pristine archipelago. Late last week, a small barge spilled close to 2,000 gallons of diesel near the island of Puerto Villamil, home to turtles, […]

Umbra on flushing medications

Dear Umbra, I work with a number of older women who try to be environmentally conscientious. When it comes to discarding outdated medications though, there seems to be conflicting advice. Medical doctors tell me that all such medicines should be flushed down the toilet. Water resource people say, don’t flush, because all those discarded medicines […]

Umbra on chlorinated swimming pools

Umbra, I recently managed to mangle my knee and am going through all the 4,673 steps necessary to unmangle it and make it happy and functional again. One of the things my doctor advised me to do was swim. Well, swimming pools are of course full of chlorine! Hey, I just bought an expensive filter […]

The Name of the Haze

The U.S. National Weather Service has long maintained the tradition of giving names to hurricanes, but in Toronto, the environmental organization Greenpeace is taking matters one step further by naming excessively smoggy days after national politicians. The program is designed to call attention to the failure of the Canadian government to ratify the Kyoto Protocol […]

The Sludge Report

From the department of You’ve Got To Be Kidding: An internal U.S. EPA document alleges that the 200,000 tons of toxic sludge dumped by the Army Corps of Engineers into the Potomac River every year is actually good for fish, because it forces them to flee the polluted area — and escape from anglers in […]