Latest Articles

Mah-agony

No, it’s not an anti-abortion campaign: This Operation Rescue is an attempt to save Brazil’s mahogany trees from the chainsaw. The nation has launched a “war” to recover an estimated $16 million worth of the valuable wood before it is shipped abroad, and to set up road and river patrols to block smuggling routes. The […]

Wolfing It Up

Maybe it’s Manifest Destiny — or maybe it’s just the instinct of all creatures to return to their home. Whatever the reason, the gray wolf, once exterminated from Northern California and southern Oregon, is slowly making its way westward from the Rockies. As its arrival becomes ever more imminent, battle lines are being drawn. Defenders […]

Elizabeth Grossman reviews Wild Nights by Anne Matthews

Say "New York City" and wildlife is not the first thing that comes to mind. Yet despite nearly 400 years of fast and furious city life, the Big Apple is home to a world of flora and fauna that goes far beyond sidewalk planters and pampered pets. As the grass pushing up in cracked cement sidewalks reminds us, nature has a tenacious way of claiming the interstices of the urban landscape. It is this unruly, abundant, and often overlooked universe that Anne Matthews explores in her charming and perspicacious new book, Wild Nights.

H-2-Oh-boy!

Utility companies can be sued for violating safe drinking water standards, the California Supreme Court unanimously decided on Monday. The decision is significant because it allows thousands of victims of polluted water to seek financial compensation from the private and public utilities that pipe tap water into homes; in the past, victims mostly targeted the […]

That’s Some Good Coffee

  Re: Ashley Parkinson, Northwest Shade Coffee Campaign Dear Editor: Ashley Parkinson’s column has inspired me, my wife, and a friend to place our first-ever order for shade-grown coffee. After reading her column, all three of us are committed to buying environmentally friendly coffee. Please pass along our kudos for the fine piece of journalism. […]

Slash-and-Burn Budget

Okay, it’s predictable, but it’s still a bummer: President Bush announced today that he will seek sharp budget cuts in environmental initiatives and dozens of other domestic programs for the upcoming fiscal year. After all, the president’s proposed $379 billion funding bonanza for the Pentagon has to come from somewhere. Bush is calling for reduced […]

Charles Stahler, Vegetarian Resource Group

Charles Stahler is codirector of the Vegetarian Resource Group, an organization that works with businesses, schools, and consumers to provide information about and advocate for vegetarian and vegan lifestyles. Monday, 4 Feb 2002 BALTIMORE, Md. My day always starts off by answering questions. Today, the Vegetarian Resource Group received an email that began, “I am […]

12-Step Salmon Recovery

The After-kla-math

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has determined that there was “no sound scientific basis” for the federal government’s decision to deny irrigation water to more than 1,000 farms in Oregon’s Klamath Basin during last summer’s drought. A panel of 12 independent scientists, convened at the behest of Interior Secretary Gale Norton, concluded that there […]

Area 51

Fair-to-middling was the U.S. ranking in a new study, presented at the World Economic Forum last week in New York, that rated the environmental health of 142 countries. In the study, conducted by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University, the U.S. […]