Latest Articles

New District in Colombia

In what conservationists hope will serve as a model for future projects, Colombia has set aside a 167,960-acre park in the Amazon basin and granted the indigenous people who live there control over its management. Formally established late last month after years of negotiations between the government, indigenous people, and environmental groups, Indiwasi National Park […]

They’re Driving Us Crazy

A proposal to increase Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency standards for vehicles by 50 percent over the next 13 years was effectively voted down 62 to 38 in the Senate yesterday, to the delight of automakers and dismay of environmentalists. The Senate instead approved an industry-backed measure that would give the Bush administration two more years […]

Superadobe, Super Abode

If the president of Senegal has his way, the West African nation could one day be home to a model eco-town that mitigates the problems caused by both poverty and environmental degradation. The project is the brainchild of architect Nader Khalili, who pioneered a construction method known as “Superadobe,” in which sand and barbed wire […]

Babbittry

Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt announced today that he will become the chair of a company that plans to develop massive water projects in the Middle East. Babbitt, a lawyer who headed up the Interior Department during the Clinton administration, has since earned the ire of environmentalists by advising two companies seeking to develop parts […]

Fewer Living Through Chemistry?

Much of the post-Sept. 11 anxiety about future acts of terrorism has focused on the threat of biological or nuclear disaster — but an attack on a U.S. chemical plant could do as much or more harm, killing or injuring as many as 2.4 million people. That figure, which comes from a report by the […]

Home Builders, Habitat Wreckers

In what appears to be yet another triumph of industry over everything else, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service announced this week that it would temporarily revoke habitat protection for salmon and steelhead in 150 watersheds, river areas, bays, and estuaries in four western states. The changes, which are part of a series of recent […]

Supercuts

U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman faced tough questioning from Congress members yesterday as she tried to defend her agency’s decision to cut the number of Superfund toxic waste cleanups in half, from more than 80 per year during the Clinton administration to about 40 under President Bush. Whitman blamed the cuts on lack of funding; […]

Green-goes

Giving the lie to the myth that lower income and minority Americans don’t care about the environment, Latino voters are proving to be some of the most dedicated environmentalists in California. For example, 74 percent of Latino voters approved a recent $2.6 billion parks and open space measure that was supported by just 56 percent […]

Jonna Higgins-Freese

Jonna Higgins-Freese is environmental outreach coordinator at Prairiewoods: Franciscan Spirituality Center in Hiawatha, Iowa. She is a fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program. Monday, 11 Mar 2002 HIAWATHA, Iowa Just for the record, I am not a nun. I do work for nuns, so folks often want to know if I’m one of them. I […]

Price tags don’t tell the full story

I have a young friend who, I think, will never eat another banana without thinking a great deal about its history. Going bananas. On a trip to Belize, Hannah and other home-schooled teenagers saw monkeys, the rainforest, and Mayan villages. But the memory that seems to stand out most vividly is of a banana plantation. […]