Latest Articles
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Too Cool, from School
Pennsylvania State University has undertaken a massive new recycling program — not for paper or plastics or food waste, but for the mammoth piles of stuff that students leave behind at the end of every school year, from sneakers to TVs to sofas. The end-of-term junk problem grew into a major headache on U.S. campuses […]
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Swiss Miss
In a closely watched referendum, Swiss citizens voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to keep nuclear power going strong in the country. Although Switzerland has abundant sources of hydroelectric power, voters rejected two initiatives on the ballot that would have phased out the nation’s five nuclear power plants over the coming decades. Philippe de Rougemont, representative for […]
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A Shore Thing
Controversy is bubbling along the East Coast of the U.S. as a handful of companies press forward with plans to build offshore wind turbines — 858 off the Maryland shore, 221 off Virginia, and 130 off Cape Cod, Mass. There are now some 15,000 wind turbines on U.S. land, providing clean, renewable power and decreasing […]
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Ritu Primlani, Thimmakka’s Resources for Environmental Education
Ritu Primlani is the founder and executive director of Thimmakka’s Resources for Environmental Education, a nonprofit that, among other things, provides environmental education to ethnic restaurants in the San Francisco Bay area. She is a fellow in the Environmental Leadership Program. Monday, 19 May 2003 BERKELEY, Calif. Lately I have had the urge to pray. […]
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Seedy
Members of Brazil’s Landless Peasant Movement occupied a test farm owned by biotechnology giant Monsanto last week, in a bid to expel the company and establish an organic farm on the site instead. The protestors say neither the people nor the government of the Brazilian state of Parana support genetically modified (GM) crops, such as […]
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Sadder Day in the Park
Summer is just around the bend, and with it, people all over the country will begin their annual pilgrimages to U.S national parks. Unfortunately, the parks aren’t ready for them: They are underfunded, over-crowded, and in disrepair. The National Park Service budget has declined almost 20 percent in the last 25 years, while the park […]
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Money for Nothing and Your Trees for Free
As many as one in 10 trees removed from national forests in the U.S. is cut down illegally, according to the U.S. Forest Service. The problem plagues the entire nation, from the Adirondacks to the Olympics, and is not restricted to public forests: Tree theft is also common on land owned by lumber companies and […]
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Growl
Along with whales and pandas, grizzly bears are among the most famous and most beloved poster children of the environmental movement. But that hasn’t deterred the Bush administration from consistently making land-use decisions that environmental activists say threaten the animals. The administration’s actions — most notably, the halting of a hard-won, Clinton-era plan to reintroduce […]
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Green Washing?
With eco-friendly marketing all the rage, companies are increasingly exploiting the term “organic” to sell their products — regardless of how good those products are for consumers or for the environment. That’s especially true when it comes to soaps, shampoos, conditioners, scrubs, lotions and the like, whose labeling practices (unlike those of food products) aren’t […]
