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Cheetahs Never Prosper

A well-known ecologist in Africa is charging that the Zimbabwe government’s policy of redistributing land owned by white farmers to poor blacks may create an environmental “disaster” threatening the country’s biodiversity. Johan du Toit of Pretoria University in South Africa says the land is home to rare animals such as black rhino, cheetah, and sable, […]

EV Riders

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) will decide next month whether to keep, change, or toss out regulations requiring that at least 10 percent of the new cars and light trucks offered for sale in the state emit little or no pollution by 2003. As the regulations stand, at least 4 percent of the new […]

Like a Bump on a Kellogg

While many European citizens are fighting bitterly against genetically modified (GM) foods, Americans have been more complacent and seem inclined to trust that the government and agribusiness corporations will keep their food supply safe. Enviro and consumer groups launched a campaign last month urging consumers to tell Campbell’s and Kellogg’s to drop GM ingredients from […]

Some Say the World Will End in Fire …

With fires whipping across the interior West at a record rate this year, the U.S. Forest Service this week is proposing to Congress a $12 billion plan to use controlled burns and extensive tree thinning to remove thick, fire-prone underbrush out of 40 million acres of forest from Montana to California. The fire prevention effort […]

Rice and Shine

Farmers may be able to significantly reduce or even eliminate their use of pesticides by planting different strains of rice, wheat, or other crops in the same field, according to a study published in the latest issue of the journal Nature. Researchers studied farms in China’s Yunnan Province where a variety of rice strains were […]

… Some Say in Ice

U.S. scientists have found evidence that the Arctic has rapidly warmed over the past 40 years, a trend in keeping with predictions from climate change models. Snow cover in the Arctic has dropped by about 10 percent since 1972 and sea ice has also been in decline, dropping to record lows in the western Arctic […]

A Great Bear Rainforest By Any Other Name

The Great Bear Rainforest, the region of British Columbia between the northern end of Vancouver Island and the Alaska Panhandle, doesn’t actually exist on the map. International environmental groups came up with the name in the mid-1990s as they campaigned for a boycott on old-growth lumber products from the region, and the name struck a […]

Stock Tip: Buy Kleenex

The rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels that are leading to global warming may also worsen hay fever, according to a new study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be published in the journal World Resource Review. Researchers say higher CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere seem to be causing ragweed to produce twice as much […]

Red Hot Chile Cyclists

On the first Tuesday of every month, hundreds of “Ciclistas Furiosos,” or enraged bicyclists, take to the streets of Santiago, Chile. Riding as slowly as possible, waving flags, and blowing whistles, they tangle up traffic to protest the city’s dirty air, caused in large part by cars. The group, which began seven years ago and […]

Mr. Green Beans

Eli Wolcott is all abuzz about socially responsible coffee. The 20-year-old is teaming up with coffee workers in the remote hills of southern Mexico to improve their quality of life and decrease the environmental damage caused by coffee production. Coffee-processing plants use large amounts of water that are then returned to streams, laden with nutrients […]