Latest Articles

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.

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Respirators Still Needed in Yellowstone

Rolling back a Clinton-era decision that would have banned snowmobiles in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks by the upcoming winter, the Bush administration plans to place no limits on snowmobiles until December 2003 and then to cap the number of snowmobiles at 1,100 per day. For the past decade, the parks have had an […]

Elder Hostile

Older Americans living in the country’s most polluted cities are more likely to need medical treatment than those living elsewhere, according to the first large-scale study of the impact of pollution on medical care costs. The study by Stanford University economist Victor Fuchs, which was published today in the journal Health Affairs, found that pollution […]

Andrew Katkin, National Environmental Trust

Andrew Katkin is the web manager for the National Environmental Trust. He is a member of NET’s team of staffers attending the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species. Monday, 11 Nov 2002 SANTIAGO, Chile Only a week has passed since the opening ceremonies of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species meeting […]