Latest Articles
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Songbird Populations Drop in the U.S.
For each species of songbird whose population is on the rise in the U.S., two species are in decline, says Jeff Wells of the National Audubon Society. Of the 116 species whose populations have fluctuated since 1966, 76 have decreased significantly. Urban sprawl, and all that comes along with it (farmland and forest loss, more […]
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Saving Private Xylem
California Gov. Gray Davis (D) is asking the state Board of Forestry to pass a rule tomorrow that would require private landowners to get state approval before cutting down ancient trees on their property. Landowners would have to go through a multiagency environmental review before receiving permission to log a single ancient tree. The proposal […]
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Cash Croppers
Nearly two-thirds of the $27 billion in farm subsidies given out last year went to just 10 percent of American farm owners, including Fortune 500 companies, wealthy members of Congress, and other millionaires, according to a study of federal data by the Associated Press. Studying the same data, the Environmental Working Group says that fewer […]
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Bay City Rollers
Hybrid cars are all the rage in the San Francisco Bay area. About one in five hybrids sold in the U.S. has been purchased in the Bay area, and the average waiting time to buy a Toyota Prius or Honda Insight is five months at local dealers. Drivers say heads turn as their cars cruise […]
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Bad Company
Commercial recycling is hit or miss in the U.S. — in some cases, for example, companies assume that recycling is occurring, but their cleaning companies are actually mixing recycling with garbage and throwing everything out as trash. From 35 to 45 percent of waste produced in the U.S. in 1999 was commercial, according to the […]
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No Safe Harbor
Even though water clarity in Boston Harbor has improved twofold and concentrations of contaminants have dropped 80 percent this past year, the area’s major beaches aren’t much cleaner than they were in the 1990s. Officials attribute the successes to a $4.1 billion, 16-year cleanup effort that ended in 2000. Sewage and stormwater discharges, however, have […]
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Wayne Hoskisson, Red Rock Forests
Wayne Y. Hoskisson is executive director of Red Rock Forests. He is a great-great-grandson of Brigham Young and lives among the red rocks of southeastern Utah. Monday, 10 Sep 2001 WASHINGTON, D.C. This is an unusual Monday morning for me. Ordinarily, I would walk an eighth of a mile to my office in Moab, Utah, […]
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The Slush of Mount Kilimanjaro
Many favorite vacation spots around the world are threatened by global warming. For example, the snow atop Mount Kilimanjaro may be around for just 15 more years and the glaciers in Glacier National Park in Montana may last just 70 more, according to recent studies. Would you like to travel to an uncomfortably hot and […]
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Old Mcdonald Had a Dead Salmon
A highly contagious disease that can be fatal to Atlantic salmon but is harmless to humans has spread to Maine, threatening endangered wild salmon and taking a bite out of fish farmers’ wallets. So far this year, fish farmers in Maine have been forced to kill more than 700,000 salmon worth some $11 million in […]
