Latest Articles

They're Not Making a List, They're Not Checking It Twice

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared last week that it would not add any animals or plants to the endangered species list until next fall because it is so busy trying to cope with lawsuits filed against the agency by environmentalists pushing for stronger species protections. Enviros criticized the decision. “Fish and Wildlife is […]

Pool's Paradise

Environmentalists and private landowners in Mexico struck an agreement last week to protect 7,000 acres of the Mexican desert, one of the largest private land conservation deals in the country, enviros say. The land on the edge of the Sierra Madre in the state of Coahuila, known as Ranch of the Blue Pools because it […]

The Sound and the Flurry

The Clinton administration is preparing to implement a flurry of controversial regulations on environmental and other issues before a new president moves into the White House on 20 Jan. The U.S. EPA alone is said to be considering more than 60 new regulations, including ones to restrict or ban the use of certain pesticides and […]

Reading tea leaves for the environment

Every month I get a kind of Reader’s Digest for people interested in the future. It’s called Future Survey, issued by the World Future Society. Each month it contains about 50 extended summaries of recent publications about the paths — economic, environmental, social — we seem to be following. The November 2000 issue, for example, […]

The U.S. balks at a global solution to global warming

THE HAGUE, Netherlands Bill McKibben reports from The Hague: Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five If you walk straight out the front door of this convention hall and skirt the sandbagged dike that activists built during a weekend demonstration, you find yourself at the front door of a squat building with […]

Banks for the Memories

Prince Charles yesterday opened the Millennium Seed Bank, which is intended to protect more than 24,000 plant species around the world from extinction. The $114 million seed bank in southern England — the largest such effort so far — will store millions of seeds in underground bomb-proof, flood-proof vaults, and house specimens of more than […]

Greenpeace student activists stir things up at The Hague

THE HAGUE, Netherlands Bill McKibben reports from The Hague: Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five The Hague, with its constant drizzle, qualifies as one of the gloomiest cities I’ve ever visited, and the tense, uncertain busyness of the convention center doesn’t add much to the atmosphere. But a 20-minute train ride […]

If They Could Just Harness All That Hot Air …

While government representatives in The Hague quibble over ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Germans are making some real progress in adopting clean energy. In the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, home to 2.8 million people and numerous heavy industries, about 19 percent of the electricity is generated by wind, and in some areas of the […]

Bye, Buy!

Sit out the shopping frenzy this Friday and celebrate Buy Nothing Day, an inspired idea from the Adbusters Media Foundation in Vancouver, B.C. The day after Thanksgiving marks the start of an annual consumer rampage, but you’ll have more fun, create less waste, and save moola if you stay home and finish off the pumpkin […]

Reds Seeing Green

Even as tourism has begun to boom in Cuba, attention to environmental concerns is also increasing. In 1970, Cuban President Fidel Castro said, “Unless we conquer nature, nature will conquer us,” and for years he encouraged farming and manufacturing to expand with little regard to the environment. But now Cuba’s communist government is limiting some […]