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To Summit All Up

South African officials announced yesterday that the next Earth Summit, to be held in Johannesburg in 2002, will focus on worldwide access to drinking water and safeguarding children. The summit — officially called the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development — has the modest agenda of reviewing progress since the 1992 Rio summit, looking at […]

This Is the Dawning of the Age of Aquariums

It would be illegal to dump a common aquarium algae in any body of water in California under a bill before the state legislature. Caulerpa taxifolia, once given away free as a decorative addition to aquariums, is now banned by the Noxious Weed Act in the U.S. — but it can still be purchased illegally […]

Tropic of Cancer

Escambia and Santa Rosa counties in Florida’s Panhandle are known for their unspoiled beaches and the Gulf of Mexico’s pretty waters — less known is that the area has some of the highest concentrations of toxic substances in the U.S. A three-month investigation by the Pensacola News Journal found that death rates from all forms […]

Scales of Justice

In a decision celebrated by salmon advocates, a federal judge ruled on Friday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been violating the Clean Water Act with its four dams on the lower Snake River in Washington state. She agreed with enviros that the dams raise water temperatures and dissolved nitrogen levels beyond standards […]

They Wouldn't Touch Pollution With a 10-foot Poll

Sixty-four percent of Californians don’t want environmental protections rolled back as part of a solution to the current energy crisis, according to a Los Angeles Times poll. Almost 90 percent of respondents said they had taken steps in the last six months to reduce their own energy consumption. Sixty percent said they would oppose more […]

Marine Core

As much as one-fifth of the world’s oceans should be put off-limits to fishing to save large numbers of fish and other aquatic species from going extinct, according to a consensus statement released by 150 of the world’s leading marine scientists. Scientists have spent more than two years studying whether large marine reserves allow fish […]

The Oh-Nos of Kilimanjaro

The ice cap on Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro will be gone in 15 years, says Lonnie G. Thompson, a researcher at Ohio State University. Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science this weekend, Thompson said that 82 percent of the ice cap that existed on the mountain in 1912 […]

Brenda Morehouse, Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development

Brenda Morehouse is manager of the Pembina Institute’s new environmental activism website, EcoAction.ca, and senior editor for ClimateChangeSolutions.com. Sunday, 18 Feb 2001 OTTAWA, Ontario Me and Lou, at work. This is an exciting time for EcoAction.ca! Tomorrow, we launch our Green Power Action campaign in support of renewable energy. I’m at the office on a […]

A review of Powder Burn

A little over two years ago, fire swept through five buildings and four ski lifts in Vail, Colo., causing more than $12 million in damage, upending a small town already reeling from enormous change, and eventually introducing the word ecoterrorism into the mainstream lexicon.

Soil Ain't Green

Just 16 percent of the world’s farmlands are free of problems like chemical contamination, acidity, salinity, and poor drainage, according to a study by the International Food Policy Research Institute and the World Resources Institute. Using satellite data, the groups found that as little as 6 percent of Asia’s farmlands are free of such fertility […]