Latest Articles

Umbra on cooling your car

Dear Umbra, Is it more efficient to drive down the highway with my windows down or the air conditioner on? I know the air conditioner decreases gas mileage, but I bet having my windows down at 75 miles per hour produces pretty good drag. Thanks, Sara Dearest Sara, This is July’s Question of the Month […]

You’ve Got Male

Saving endangered species is usually a matter of preserving habitat, fending off threats, and hoping for the best. Now, though, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine have found a way to incubate sperm from other animals inside laboratory mice, a process they hope could aid species whose survival is threatened by […]

Burned

In addition to scorching millions of acres of habitat and killing wildlife, the fires that have raged throughout the western U.S. this summer have taken another toll on the environment — a financial one. The federal government expects to spend more than $1.5 billion battling wildfires this year, and millions of those dollars will come […]

Absence Makes Some Hearts Grow Fonder

By all appearance, President Bush will not be attending the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, at the end of the month — much to the delight of his conservative allies. “We applaud your decision not to attend the summit,” read a letter signed by more than 30 conservative […]

Jungle Fever

Vines are the hallmark of any self-respecting jungle — picture Tarzan swinging in from offstage — but the situation is getting a bit out of control in the Amazon rainforest, where vines are growing so quickly they are choking trees and possibly interfering with the ability of forests to soak up greenhouse gases, according to […]

To Summit Up

A global report card issued by the United Nations just two weeks before an international environmental summit has given low marks to the world’s ecological condition. Among the report’s more shocking findings: Three million people die annually from air pollution, while more than 1 billion people — a sixth of the world’s population — lack […]

Curse D’ Alene

In a precedent-setting move, U.S. federal officials signed an agreement yesterday ceding control of the cleanup of Idaho’s highly polluted Coeur d’Alene Basin to state, local, and tribal officials. For more than a century, mining waste from the Silver Valley washed down the Coeur d’Alene River into Lake Coeur d’Alene and the Spokane River, and […]

Everybody Must Get Estonia-ed

Like the rest of the former Soviet Union, the Baltic states were once ecological disasters. But while Russia continues to be an environmental nightmare, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are investing serious resources into cleaning up their environments — in the interest, government officials say, of gaining entry into the European Union. To do so, they […]

Arresting Development

U.S. federal authorities arrested two Portland State University students yesterday and are seeking two others in conjunction with the firebombing of logging trucks during last year’s protest of the Eagle Creek timber sale in Oregon. Environmentalists spent years protesting the timber sale, and some resorted to tree-sitting and other forms of civil disobedience. The sale […]

No Room at the Inn

Banff National Park is the jewel of the Canadian Rockies — and its most sparkly facet is Lake Louise, famous for emerald waters, dense forests, and glittering reflections of Victoria Glacier. But the peaceful-looking spot is actually a battleground between a large Canadian hotel chain and environmentalists who want to put a stop to a […]