Latest Articles

Jonna Higgins-Freese reviews The Farm as Natural Habitat by Dana and Laura Jackson

You'll have to forgive the staid title: Right from the start, The Farm as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems with Ecosystems is thoroughly Midwestern in tone -- reserved, practical, and down-to-earth. Edited by long-time sustainable-agriculture advocates Dana and Laura Jackson, a mother-daughter team, the essays collected here describe farming practices that mimic and protect natural systems. But if the voice is mild, the message is urgent: Environmentalists must build ties with farmers if we are to grow food without destroying topsoil, poisoning our air and water, and killing wildlife.

Great Lakes Minds Think Alike

The U.S. government has pledged to spend billions of dollars to restore the Florida Everglades — and now the Great Lakes states are trying to figure out how they can get a piece of the federal pie, too. For more than a year, the governors of the eight states have been meeting to formulate a […]

Staircase Closed

Former President Clinton acted within his authority when he created new national monuments during his final year in office, a federal court ruled Friday. The ruling was a victory for environmentalists and a blow for property-rights advocates and others who had challenged seven of the 15 monument designations in court. The Circuit Court of Appeals […]

Security: Blank It

In the name of keeping sensitive information out of the hands of terrorists, the Bush administration has restricted access to a broad range of scientific research — removing Internet links, deleting information from websites, and even requiring federal librarians to destroy a CD-ROM about public water supplies. The information lockdown is making it tough for […]

On Guard

An effort to beef up safety at U.S. nuclear power plants by requiring guards to work 12-hour shifts instead of eight may be backfiring: The guards, who have been working the longer shifts since Sept. 11, 2001, report that they are tired, prone to error, and, well, in a bad mood. The long hours have […]

Massive a Tax

New Zealand has unveiled a carbon tax to help it meet the goals of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which the country expects to ratify by year’s end. The tax, which would be implemented in 2007 assuming Kyoto has come into effect, would boost retail gas prices by up to 6 percent, diesel prices […]

Give a Hoot

Today is the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act — and although the United States has made some strides in improving water quality, it has still got a long way to go. A whopping 81 percent of major wastewater treatment plants and chemical and industrial facilities in the U.S. contaminated waterways beyond what their […]

The Slush of Kilimanjaro

The snow-capped peak of Tanzania’s Mt. Kilimanjaro is one of the most famous vistas on the African continent. Soon, though, you might not be able to see it in person: The mountain’s 11,000-year-old snow cap shrank by 80 percent in the past century and could be gone within two decades if temperature trends continue, according […]

That’s Sprawl, Folks

Communities in California, Georgia, and North Carolina are the worst offenders when it comes to suburban sprawl in the United States, according to a three-year study released yesterday by the Washington, D.C.-based coalition Smart Growth America. The study, based on the work of researchers at Rutgers University and Cornell University, measured sprawl by evaluating the […]

Drain Canada

In response to the escalating energy demands of the United States, Canada has increased its oil production by nearly 50 percent in the past decade and its natural gas production by more than two-thirds. According to a report by the Sierra Club of Canada and the Natural Resources Defense Council, more than half of Canada’s […]