Latest Articles

EPA and BLM fight over how to protect groundwater from massive Nevada mine

In an age when corporate America can’t see past its quarterly results, it’s hard to imagine how the world’s largest gold producer is going to manage the environmental damage caused by one of its mines hundreds or even thousands of years into the future. Future site of the Phoenix mine. Photo: Lighthawk, Great Basin Mine […]

Bush drilling plan ticks off many New Mexicans and tickles GOP donors pink

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) is facing off against the Department of Interior and its Bureau of Land Management over a plan to allow oil and gas drilling on his state’s pristine Otero Mesa — an expanse of desert grassland which the governor, with a touch of dramatic flair, has called “the West’s ANWR.” […]

Out With the Old Growth, in With the Nu

Nu River Dam Threatens Unique Chinese Ecosystem A massive dam project planned for the Nu River in southwestern China threatens to wreak havoc on a region that contains one of the world’s least-disturbed temperate ecosystems. The area, designated by the U.N. as a World Heritage Site, contains old-growth forests, 7,000 species of plants, and 80 […]

Green Card

New Scorecard Measures Sustainability Progress in Northwest Nightly newscasts report on the stock market and the GDP. But do these common measures really tell us how society is faring? Northwest Environment Watch, a Seattle-based think tank, doesn’t think so. Today it released its first annual Cascadia Scorecard, intended as a better assessment of the overall […]

PR You Serious?

Forest Service Hired PR Firm to Sell Logging Plan Remember that controversial U.S. Forest Service plan unveiled in January that aims to triple commercial logging in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains? The one they said would “protect small communities” and create “forests with a future”? The one that critics said flew in the face of wide […]

Dispatches from an international conference on genetically modified corn

Carmelo Ruiz is a Puerto Rican journalist, a research associate of the Institute for Social Ecology, a fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program, and a senior fellow of the Society of Environmental Journalists. This week he is attending the Maize and Biodiversity Symposium.. Tuesday, 9 Mar 2004 OAXACA CITY, Mexico So here I am in […]

Umbra on exporting our recycling

Dear Umbra, While we were cleaning out a family member’s house, a neighbor stopped by to see what we were up to. I mentioned that we were tossing “real trash” into the large dumpster and compiling recyclable materials for a trip to the recycling center or metal scrap yard. We don’t know this person well, […]

Energy bill may be gaining ground, but prospects are still dicey

It’s a gas, gas, gas. U.S. oil prices jumped to their highest levels since the Iraq war this week, hitting $37.51 a barrel, for an average of about $1.74 a gallon — unwelcome news for those feeling the pinch at the pump, but great news for supporters of the newly overhauled but still-stalled energy bill. […]

Umbra on the benefits of recycling

Dear Umbra, Some time ago, the public radio program This American Life, hosted by Ira Glass, was about recycling. Glass reported, “Experts agree that we have plenty of landfill space for the foreseeable future.” He proposed that recycling therefore did little more than make us feel good. The hapless person he interviewed came up with […]

Umbra on recycling profitability

Dear Umbra, My friend has the notion that recycling programs lose money. Where does this come from? I can imagine situations where that could be the case, but in most cities there seems to be plenty of material being recycled to justify the collection infrastructure, etc. And surely there are markets for more recycled content […]