Latest Articles

The green take on insect repellents and sunscreens

As summer finally rolls in, most of us are eager to shed our layers and splash in the surf or hike through the woods. Along the way, we might slap on some SPF 30 sunscreen to ward off skin cancer and hose down our arms and necks with skeeter repellent. But rather than go wild […]

Yes-kia

The World Wildlife Fund plans to teach the 50,000 employees of telecommunications giant Nokia how to be good environmentalists, the conservation organization announced yesterday. In a groundbreaking partnership, WWF will provide seminars and workshops on environmental issues and create environmental interest-group areas on the company’s internal computer network. Nokia Vice President Veli Sundback said the […]

Camarooned

By the end of this year, hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil will flow through pipelines in Chad and Cameroon, bringing about $2.5 billion and $500 million to the two countries, respectively. But critics say those profits won’t help the region’s poorest and neediest, even though the project’s major players — an ExxonMobil-led […]

Country House, City House

Once upon a time, the Russian dacha, or country house, was the domain of the wealthy few, those who could afford to escape the grime and grit of Moscow and St. Petersburg for wooded lawns and rural vistas. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia’s mushrooming business class has poured millions […]

Dire Strait

Russian poachers are killing 200 to 400 polar bears each year in the Bering Strait region, a trend that threatens to halve the strait’s bear population by 2020, according to new research by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Russia and the U.S. are currently considering ratification of a treaty the two nations signed in […]

South Parks

A plan to privatize a string of national parks in sub-Saharan Africa has garnered support from former South African president Nelson Mandela, the World Bank, and the U.S. State Department, among others. The plan grew out of a 1998 meeting between Mandela and Paul van Vlissingen, a Dutch tycoon and conservationist, at which Mandela expressed […]

Grazing a Ruckus

After years of rancorous fighting, a group of Idaho environmentalists and ranchers are close to agreement on a plan that would give federal wilderness protection to more than 400,000 acres in the Owyhee canyon lands of southern Idaho. The deal would also let ranchers trade grazing leases for parcels of public land and assure ranchers […]

Hydrogen Hijacking?

The European Union and the U.S. agreed yesterday to team up on research into hydrogen fuel cells, widely touted as a potentially clean power source that will revolutionize future energy use. But while the E.U. wants to develop hydrogen using renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, the U.S. has plans to use fossil […]

Driving Reign

Seventy-five percent of U.S. workers drive alone to their jobs, according to data from the 2000 U.S. Census, while only 4.7 percent get to work via public transportation and 0.4 percent commute by bicycle. Ridership on mass transit has increased 22 percent since 1996, says the American Public Transit Association, but highway driving has increased […]

Jill Rosenblum, The Natural Step

Jill Rosenblum is director of communications and outreach for the U.S. office of The Natural Step, an international research and advisoryorganization working with corporations, governments, scientists, and academics to accelerate global sustainability. Monday, 16 Jun 2003 SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. It’s a beautiful day in San Francisco, sunny and 70 degrees, and as I write this […]