Latest Articles

Umbra on making mulch from paper

Dear Umbra, I know this is a silly question, probably the strangest you’ve ever gotten, but I’m curious. Where I live, there isn’t a place nearby to recycle paper. I reuse most of my paper as scratch paper and have attempted to make my own paper using a blender and a screen. The problem is, […]

Umbra on cushion planters

Dear Umbra, I have been cutting out old cushions, filling them with dirt, and planting them for some years now. I found the first two floating in the river (while canoeing). Since then, I’ve gotten them from the trash; I don’t pay anything for them. I use them to grow everything from herbs to prairie […]

Umbra on used soap

Dear Umbra, At a gym I go to, lots of guys pick up bars of soap, use them for two minutes, and then leave them (even though there is a liquid soap dispenser in the showers). Is there any good use for several pounds of partially used soap per day? DennisSeattle, Wash. Dearest Dennis, I […]

The Bush administration embraces hybrid technology

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A Catalog of Ills

Of the 17 billion catalogs mailed every year to American consumers (that’s 59 catalogs for each and every one of us!), a surprising few contain recycled materials. An Environmental Defense survey released yesterday found that only six of 42 major catalog companies are using significant amounts of recycled paper, and most don’t use any. Nary […]

Air Enforce Won

After years of court battles, the U.S. EPA agreed yesterday to begin enforcing a stricter standard for ozone pollution that was developed by the Clinton administration in 1997. Industry groups such as the American Truckers Associations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to block […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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.