Latest Articles
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Sweet Child of Mine?
After forcing a mining operation to leave town in 1997, the 46 families of Junin, a remote village in northern Ecuador, decided to have a go at ecotourism to protect the rainforest around them — and to earn a living. But now a growing number of the residents are questioning that choice. The paradise of […]
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Detroit Rock City
Detroit automakers sure aren’t complaining about the Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate. They anticipate having a close ally in the incoming chair of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who is known for his criticism of clean air regulations and the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. He once referred to […]
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Crop Busting
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is ordering the destruction of hundreds of thousands of bushels of soybeans in Nebraska after discovering that they were contaminated with genetically modified (GM) corn. The Texas-based company ProdiGene is attempting to grow GM corn impregnated with medications such as the hepatitis B vaccine. It plowed over a failed […]
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Michelle Nijhuis reviews Hunting Season, A Killing Season, and Hoot
If the pen really is mightier than the sword, it seems like environmentalists should have worked themselves out of a job a long time ago. Take a stroll through almost any bookstore, and you'll find a nature-writing section full of lushly designed covers, beautifully turned prose, and impassioned arguments on behalf of the land. It looks like a slam-dunk for Team Green.
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You’re Living in Your Own Private Idaho
An increasingly common type of collaboration between a conservation group and a logging company will protect up to 600,000 acres of private forestland in northern Idaho from development. The Washington-based timber company Potlatch, which owns the land, will sell its development rights to the California-based Trust for Public Land, which in turn expects to raise […]
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Study Buddies
Ignoring the overwhelming consensus among scientists worldwide, the Bush administration this week unveiled a proposal that would have the U.S. embark on another years-long study to assess whether humans are causing the globe to warm. Industry officials and other climate skeptics lauded the research plan. But many climate scientists said it would simply reopen issues […]
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Staples Gunned
In a milestone victory for trees and forest advocates, the office-supply giant Staples announced yesterday that it would phase out paper goods made from threatened forests and increase the average amount of recycled material in its paper products to 30 percent, up from the current average of less than 10 percent. No timetable has been […]
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On Thin Rice
Arkansas and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are supporting a $200 million plan that would rescue rice growers in the state and divert water from the White River to 250,000 acres, representing about 5 percent of U.S. rice production. The proposed project would cost about $300,000 per farmer. Advocates for the plan say the […]
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Time for a Change
No need to throw the dirty diapers out with the bathwater! Santa Clarita, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles, is the first municipality in the United States to institute a diaper-recycling program, which will transform the soiled, disposable sacks of goodies into oil filters, roof shingles, and vinyl siding. Some 20 billion diapers are buried […]
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Chips Ahoy … Ahoy, Ahoy
Think twice before you scrap that computer for the latest flat-screen iMac. Pound for pound, the average computer chip causes more harm to the environment than a car, according to a study by a team at the United Nations University in Tokyo. The researchers looked at all the materials (including chemicals and fossil fuels) required […]
