Latest Articles

Oil and Accuracy Don’t Mix

The public owes much of its knowledge about the environment to journalists on the green beat — but what happens when those journalists get it systematically wrong? That’s what has happened with reporting on Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, according to a new study funded by the U.S. EPA and published in the journal Annual […]

Mexico City’s mayor plans to reduce pollution by building more roads

Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has come a long way in the last decade — too far, some environmentalists would argue. O, brador. Photo: Gobierno del Distrito Federal. In February 1996, AMLO (as the Mexican press calls him) was arguably the country’s most prominent environmentalist, organizing a string of high-profile protests in his […]

Park and Writhe

The National Parks Conservation Association has released its annual list of endangered parks — and, sadly, it includes some of the most treasured wild areas in the U.S.: Yellowstone, Denali, and the Great Smoky Mountains, among others. The unlucky parks made the list because they are plagued by problems such as air pollution, excessive motor […]

Glow Worms

It’s been a busy week when it comes to nuclear security. Here in the U.S., the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has agreed to overhaul its management of the nation’s atomic power plants in response to concern that it failed to rapidly detect potentially disastrous damage to a reactor in Ohio. Yesterday, the NRC adopted almost all […]

Spotted Record

Federal protections for the spotted owl and the marbled murrelet have been blamed by many in the anti-enviro camp for the collapse of the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest during the 1990s. Now, the Bush administration has announced that it will review those protections, as well as the designation of “critical habitat” thought necessary […]

Roger Di Silvestro, National Parks Conservation Association

Roger Di Silvestro is the senior director of Communications for the National Parks Conservation Association. He has been a professional conservationist for more than 25 years and has written six books on wildlife conservation. Tuesday, 14 Jan 2003 WASHINGTON, D.C. Today, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), which since 1919 has been working to ensure […]

On the Rocks, With Salt

California received a blow to its water supplies earlier this month when the feds reduced the amount of Colorado River water diverted to the state. Now, the ever-thirsty Golden State is turning to a different potential source to solve its water woes: the Pacific Ocean. Seawater can be converted to freshwater through desalination, a process […]

Is the U.S. prepared for a major oil spill in its waters?

In the wake of November’s massive oil spill off the coast of Spain that continues to despoil hundreds of miles of undeveloped shoreline, disrupt vast fisheries, and jeopardize the livelihoods of the people who depend on them, the European Union has begun to crack down on old, poorly maintained, single-hulled tankers like the sunken “Prestige.” […]

Weed Wackos

The widespread use of Roundup, a common herbicide developed by Monsanto, has caused weeds that are resistant to the chemical to spring up on a half-million acres of agricultural land across the U.S. At fault, scientists say, is the popularity of bioengineered crops that are “Roundup Ready” — that is, created by Monsanto to be […]

Texas, With Mess

The Texas legislature is under pressure to find a way to fund a plan to cut smog in the state’s major urban areas. If the lawmakers can’t come up with the money soon, the U.S. EPA has threatened to reject the plan and take over the state’s pollution-control efforts. That would jeopardize federal highway money, […]