Latest Articles
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Pain in the Tongass
Moderate Republicans, as well as Democrats and environmentalists, are up in arms over eleventh-hour language added by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to a huge $395 billion spending bill that would boost logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. The provision would exempt nearly 2 million acres in the Tongass from a rule approved by former President […]
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How to have a Valentine’s Day with a conscience
Friday is Valentine’s Day, but while you’re buying bonbons and bouquets, be sure to be sweet to the planet, too. If Hershey’s, Hallmark, and FTD aren’t your idea of romance, never fear: Eco-friendly options smell good, taste good (well, maybe not the flowers), and just might land you a date. Flowers In 2001, Americans spent […]
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One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, Dead Mississippi
Six states whose waters feed the lower Mississippi River agreed this week to work together to reduce the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Fertilizers, sewage, and other nutrient-rich pollution flowing from 42 states into the Mississippi produce the annual dead zone at the mouth of the river — a stretch of water with […]
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The Reilly Factor
Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly (D) yesterday threw his weight behind opponents of a plan to build a wind farm off the state’s coast. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed in federal court, Reilly argued that the seabed of Nantucket Sound belongs to the federal government and therefore cannot be casually granted to a private company. […]
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Whatlands?
In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers standard to determine which of the nations’ bodies of water deserve protection, calling it overly broad. But the high court didn’t say what the standard should be, an issue the corps has been struggling to resolve ever since. Now, the dilemma […]
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A travel club provides a greener alternative to AAA
It’s not easy to knock AAA. The venerable organization has 45 million members who count on it for trip insurance, travel advice, and, most of all, emergency services. It’s no wonder that many members have sworn lifetime loyalty to Triple A: Rescuing drivers marooned on dark, lonely highways can do wonders for membership renewal rates. […]
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Owl’s Not Well
In a blow to environmentalists, the California spotted owl has been denied protection under the federal Endangered Species Act. According to the U.S. Fish and Wild Service, there is not enough evidence that the owl’s habitat is sufficiently threatened to merit listing — even though the agency acknowledged that a U.S. Forest Service plan to […]
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Coal Play
It would seem that preemptive measures are all the rage among anti-environmentalists these days. In Alaska, Gov. Frank Murkowski (R) is awaiting the Interior Department’s response to a request he made last year (while still a senator) to prohibit the establishment of new wilderness areas in the state. “Congress set aside all this wilderness, all […]
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Jesse Lichtenstein reviews The People’s Forests by Robert Marshall
At 3:30 in the morning, on July 15, 1932, 31-year-old Bob Marshall started walking. His goal: to see how many peaks in the Adirondack Mountains he could scale in one day. At 1 p.m., he met up with Herb Clark, an old family friend, at the summit of Mount Marcy, the highest mountain in the range. Clark was with a young architect named Paul Schaefer. More than 30 years later, looking back on the encounter, Schaefer could vividly recall his impression that Marshall's eyes "reflected a great joy for living."
