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Sun Francisco Giants

San Francisco could become the nation’s leader in alternative energy use if voters approve two solar-energy ballot measures at the polls next week. Propositions B and H would enable the city to sell bonds to install solar panels on residential, commercial, and government rooftops, creating the largest solar power infrastructure in the United States. Advocates […]

Terminal Illness

Plans to build a new $350 million liquid natural gas terminal in Baja California were unveiled yesterday by the El Paso Corporation, but a Mexican city is withholding approval due to environmental and social concerns. The Rosarito municipal government has denied El Paso a land-use permit, and the city’s mayor has described the project as […]

Morocco, Mo' Talk

Close to 4,000 people from 163 countries converged on Marrakech, Morocco, today for the beginning of a two-week conference on the Kyoto treaty on climate change. The opening was characterized by unusually heavy security, because the conference is the largest international gathering to be held since Sept. 11 and the first in a Muslim country. […]

Less Than Ground Zero

Six weeks after the attacks that reduced the World Trade Center to a pile of rubble in lower Manhattan, dust and fires from Ground Zero are releasing toxic chemicals and metals into the air in quantities far greater than initially reported. Although U.S. and New York EPA officials have consistently downplayed the environmental hazards, government […]

Cut That Out

California’s largest timber company, Sierra Pacific Industries, will shift its logging practices from selective thinning to clear-cutting on 70 percent of the 1.5 million acres it owns in the state. Company representatives say the clear-cutting will take place along ridgelines or roads, allowing firefighters better access to control wildfires. But environmentalists say clear-cutting actually increases […]

Malaise-ia

A proposed pipeline that would transport natural gas from the South China Sea through Thailand and into Malaysia is bringing only conflict to the region thus far. The Thai government sees possibilities for modernization, dependable energy, employment, and the economic unification of Southeast Asia in the pipeline, but many villagers see a threat to their […]

Richard Murphy, Ocean Futures Society

Richard Murphy is a marine biologist who has traveled all over the world with Jacques Cousteau and his son, Jean-Michel, exploring, helping to organize filming expeditions, and doing research. He works for Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Futures Society as a writer, scientist, photographer, and educator. Monday, 29 Oct 2001 SANTA CRUZ, Calif. I began this week […]

You Don't Know Jack

Going Ba-Nenanas

Is the climate changing? You bet. Or residents of Nenana, Alaska do, anyway. For the last 84 years, the folks in Nenana, 230 miles north of Anchorage, have been placing bets on when the ice would break up on the nearby Tanana River. The annual guessing game, known locally as the Nenana Ice Classic, allowed […]

Grizzlies: Add 'Em

A bid to scrap a plan to reintroduce grizzly bears along the Montana-Idaho border was overwhelmingly rejected by the public, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Although 98 percent of the 28,000 comments supported reintroducing grizzlies to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, a representative for Interior Secretary Gale Norton said this week that the final […]