Latest Articles

Parky Pig

National park funding determined by political clout rather than need At a time when three-quarters of national parks are having their base budgets cut and park advocates are crying out about the desperate need for more funding, it may gall many enviros to find out how capricious and politically motivated park funding really is. Consider […]

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, I Love Ya, Tomorrow

Bush administration postpones action on enviro issues until after election The Bush administration is pushing off a number of controversial environment-related moves until after the election. For example: Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham had requested a report from the National Petroleum Council on how to boost U.S. oil-refining capacity, to be released tomorrow. The U.S. EPA […]

A new resort complex threatens a Japanese paradise

The elusive and endangered yamaneko. Photo: Makoto Yokotsuka. The Iriomote cat is a survivor. For centuries, it employed the surest survival technique of all — avoiding humans — before being scientifically described for the first time in 1967 by Dr. Yoshimori Imaizumi of Tokyo’s National Science Museum. Its home, Iriomote Island, is one of the […]

Creature Comforts

A new push for protecting sharks and lions Despite the relative infrequency of its attacks on humans, the great white shark has achieved a fearsome reputation, thanks largely to the 1975 film “Jaws.” Viewed with trepidation and fascination, it is now a prized catch for trophy hunters, who sell its jaws and teeth at great […]

When Geeks Attack

Another group of scientists to campaign against Bush Scientists and Engineers for Change, a 527 advocacy group unveiled yesterday, plans to send scientists on speaking gigs in swing states to argue that the Bush administration disregards and distorts science — in many cases, science relating to serious environmental problems. “We must begin to address climate […]

An excerpt from Feeling the Heat sizes up the ominous Asian Cloud

The Indian city of Mumbai, formerly Bombay, is home to one of Asia's largest slums and endures among the worst air quality on earth. Half the city's population lacks running water or electricity, and the smoke from countless wood-burning cooking fires joins with the acrid haze from two-stroke auto rickshaws, diesel buses, and coal-fired power plants to all but choke the city. Breathing Mumbai's air, reports the Lonely Planet travel guide, is equivalent to smoking 20 cigarettes a day. Comparable air quality wraps New Delhi, Bangalore, and 69 of India's 70 principal cities year-round, according to a 1997 study by India's Central Pollution Control Board.

Baked Alaskans

Global warming is destroying Eskimo villages While debates over the “precautionary principle” and economic tradeoffs take place down in the cozy lower 48, global warming is entirely less abstract to Inupiaq Eskimos on the coast of Alaska. They’re not so much worried about losing jobs as losing, well, their villages. The annual mean air temperature […]

Go West, Young Pollutocrat!

Bush administration makes big push for oil and gas drilling in West With unprecedented speed, the Bush administration has opened vast swaths of environmentally sensitive land in the West to oil and gas drilling — this by-now-familiar story is told comprehensively in articles in The Washington Post and The Seattle Times. The situation is summed […]

Credit Where Credit is Overdue

Congress renews wind-energy tax credit for a year A popular tax credit for companies generating wind energy will likely live on through 2005. Renewal of the wind-energy production tax credit was included in the monstrous Bush administration energy bill, but that bill is, to enviros’ great relief, currently stuck in legislative limbo. However, lawmakers inserted […]

Wild Gas Chase

Fear over chemical weapons — the real ones — grows The Bush administration claimed that Iraq harbored up to 500 tons of chemical weapons, but teams of investigators came back empty-handed. Perhaps the U.S. should have invaded Australia — or China, or Russia, or, heck, itself. These countries each possess a share of the world’s […]