Latest Articles

Older Europe

Population growth in Europe is slowing down — so much so that the absolute number of people on the continent could begin to decline in the near future, according to an article published in the current issue of the journal Science. The report authors say the turning point came in 2000, when the number of […]

Someone Set Up Us the Bomb

U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman announced this week that she is “very comfortable” with the Pentagon’s proposals to exempt the military from a broad swath of environmental regulations. In response to the war in Iraq, the Defense Department has stepped up its longstanding efforts to obtain military waivers for rules ranging from endangered species protections […]

No Exit

A plan by the California Public Utilities Commission to levy an “exit fee” against anyone who stops drawing electricity from the state’s grid — read: alternative energy users — has come under fire by lawmakers, renewable energy producers, and consumers. The proposed exit fee is a holdover from the state’s 2000-2001 energy crisis, when the […]

Hawkeyes on the Prize

Iowa will soon be home to the world’s largest land-based wind farm if MidAmerican Energy Company has its way. The power company plans to erect between 180 and 200 turbines capable of generating 310 megawatts of electricity and powering some 85,000 homes. If approved by the Iowa Public Utilities Board and state lawmakers, the $323 […]

Umbra on garbage disposals

Dear Umbra: When my garbage disposal died recently, I replaced it with a clever new design that uses no electricity (just water pressure), but it led me to wonder which is really kinder to the environment: putting kitchen waste in the disposal or just trashing it? I compost whenever possible, of course, but there are […]

Umbra on paper towels vs. hand dryers

Dear Umbra, As an environmental science instructor, I’m often asked which is the better choice when drying one’s hands in a public restroom, assuming both options are available: paper towels, with their associated disposal issues, or hand dryers, with their use of electricity, much of which is wasted. What’s the answer? Curious in Iowa,Dawn Dearest […]

Umbra on what to call anti-environmentalists

Dear Umbra, I am having a problem with the word anti-environmentalists. It seems to me to make these people out to be the good guys for opposing environmentalists. Don’t we need a term that better describes people who trash the environment for profit? Say, enviro-rapist? Maybe something a little more civil? JimDeerwood, Minn. Dearest Jim, […]

Virgin Rebirth

Meanwhile, wetlands are also a matter of concern in a place that could scarcely be more different from Iraq: the island of St. Croix in the Virgin Islands. The Virgin Islands Indigenous and Endangered Species Act of 1990 specifies that the policy of the territory is to “prevent a net loss of wetlands to the […]

The Ides of Marsh

Verdant marshes and wetlands were much of what helped put the “fertile” in the Fertile Crescent, that swath of land between the Tigris and Euphrates that is considered the birthplace of Western civilization. But in the last few decades, those marshes have been all but destroyed by dam-building and civil strife in Iraq. Those marshes […]

Cleaner Smoke Stacki Thanks to Pataki

New York state now boasts the nation’s strictest pollution controls on power plants, thanks to measures approved yesterday by Gov. George Pataki (R). The announcement was met with joy by environmentalists, who had been pushing for the tougher rules for upwards of three years, but the electricity industry said the move would cost custumers while […]