Latest Articles

Surf’s Up, and So’s My Dander

Dude, I thought surfing was, like, a non-motorized sport. Motorized personal watercraft (PWCs) are making waves in the surfer community — and riling environmentalists and some surfing purists. At Maverick’s, a prime surfing spot south of San Francisco, hardcore surfers use PWCs to tow themselves out to giant waves. Critics say the watercraft are noisy, […]

Pipe Dreams

Israel and Palestine struggle over water in an arid land

Oil, namely the vast reserves in Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, is the cause of many of the broad geopolitical battles plaguing the Middle East. But it is access to water, a more fundamental resource, that is at the root of much of the bitter conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Blood and Water […]

Shrimp Fried

Under pressure from the Bush administration, a federal judge yesterday revoked the protected status of several hundred thousand acres of Southern California land considered essential for the survival of two imperiled species. U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson called on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to re-assess the economic effects of protecting the land on […]

Grim Reefer

Coral reefs are usually associated with the balmy blue waters of the tropics, but the amazing underwater kingdoms exist in cooler climes, too — at least for now. A new study by French, British, and Norwegian scientists found that 4,500-year-old reefs in the northeastern Atlantic are severely threatened by deep-sea fishing. The scientists found gouges […]

Elephants: Never Forget

A shocking 80 percent of wild elephants in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam fell victim to the ivory trade between 1988 and 2000, according to a report issued yesterday by Save the Elephants. The report blamed French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, and Chinese tourists for driving the trade in ivory trinkets, and said Thailand was the […]

Melissa Waage, Green Corps

Melissa Waage is completing a one-year training program through Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing. Sunday, 24 Feb 2002 WASHINGTON, D.C. My Sunday began in Asheville, N. C. I woke up a little late, but within an hour I had packed everything I own into three giant Tupperware bins, several backpacks, and a […]

The Polluter Pays … Less and Less

The Superfund toxic waste cleanup program was founded under the slogan “the polluter pays” and got its name from the vast financial reserves in the account. Now both the slogan and the name are misleading; the Bush administration has announced that it will not reinstate corporate taxes to boost the dwindling funds in the account, […]

What a Heel

With President Bush still scoring stunningly high in public opinion polls, the environment is shaping up to be his Achilles’ heel — and Democrats aren’t hesitating to aim their arrows. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), both potential presidential candidates for 2004, have attacked Bush’s environmental policies, and former Vice President Al Gore […]

A Tale of Two Tribes

Two Inuit tribes — the Inupiat and the Gwich’in — live just 150 miles apart, but when it comes to the debate over oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a vast ideological gulf separates them. A few hundred Inupiat live in Kaktovic, the only town inside the borders of the refuge; […]