Latest Articles

Shady Deals in the Sunshine State?

The Florida chapter of the Sierra Club is calling for the resignation of David Struhs, secretary of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, even as Struhs is reportedly being considered as a possible replacement for Christie Whitman, who last month stepped down as administrator of the U.S. EPA. The Sierra Club accuses Struhs of having […]

Smokey Vs. the Bear

National parks in the U.S., already beset by problems ranging from overcrowding to a huge maintenance backlog, now face a new crisis: illegal marijuana farming. “This is massive-scale agriculture that is threatening the very mission of the national parks, which is to preserve the natural environment in perpetuity and provide for safe public recreation,” says […]

Chop Sticks

Old-growth trees in roadless areas of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska could soon be on the chopping block. The Bush administration announced yesterday that it plans to exempt the nation’s largest national forest from the Clinton-era “roadless rule,” which blocks logging and road-building on more than 58 million acres of wild land in national […]

Toyota Story

Toyota is racing to make its cars at least as recyclable as those of its European rivals, Volkswagen and DaimlerChrysler. The Japanese automaker announced yesterday that the vehicles it produces in Japan and Europe should be at least 85 percent recyclable by 2006 and 95 percent recyclable by 2016, up from 83 percent today. The […]

Light on Their Fleet

The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to hear a case about whether the Los Angeles area can go beyond the federal Clean Air Act to impose strict anti-pollution rules on buses, taxis, garbage trucks, airport shuttles, and other vehicle fleets. Oil companies and engine manufacturers challenged a rule issued in 2000 by the South Coast Air […]

The Great Wail of China

Millions of people in northern China can look ahead to water shortages this summer with the Yellow River at a 50-year low, and the nation as a whole is expected to face a shortfall of 53 trillion gallons of water by 2030 — more than the total amount the nation now uses in a year. […]

Hanging Chad

Developing countries whose economies rely on exports of oil, gas, or extracted minerals are likely to be poverty-stricken, corrupt, authoritarian, and beset by civil war, according to numerous scholarly studies conducted since the late 1980s. Environmentalists and human-rights advocates have often used these studies to argue that the World Bank should stop funding resource-extraction projects. […]

Mary Pearl, Wildlife Trust

Mary Pearl is the president of Wildlife Trust, cofounder of its Consortium for Conservation Medicine, and an adjunct research scientist at Columbia University. Wildlife Trust is a global organization dedicated to promoting innovative conservation science, linking ecology and health, and empowering lasting local conservation. Monday, 9 Jun 2003 PALISADES, N.Y. I never have typical weeks, […]

The Mahogany and the Ecstasy

Brazil clamped down on the logging of mahogany in the Amazon Rainforest last week, putting in place new rules that require loggers to present plans showing how harvesting will be done sustainably. Brazil produces about half of the world’s supply of mahogany, a highly prized — and highly endangered — wood sought for the making […]

Muggles Get It Right, for Once

The Canadian edition of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” — to be released later this month as the fifth book in J.K. Rowlings’ phenomenally popular series — has been printed on chlorine-free, 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper. With a first print run of 935,000 copies, this is by far the largest recycled […]