Latest Articles

Hawaii K.O.

Hawaii may seem like a tropical paradise teeming with beautiful animals and plants, but what tourists don’t know is that many of the archipelago’s common species are non-native, and its indigenous species are facing an extinction crisis. With less than 1 percent of the land mass in the U.S., Hawaii is home to more than […]

Dorm!!!

Northland College in Ashland, Wis., is giving 90 students the chance to live in one of the most eco-friendly dorms in the U.S. The $4.1 million Environmental Living and Learning Center, opened in 1998, features waterless composting toilets and furniture and countertops made from recycled material. A 20-kilowatt wind tower and solar panels provide about […]

Reid It and Weep

The annual rider battle is in full swing, with a number of lawmakers in Washington., D.C, trying to attach pieces of anti-environmental legislation to large, must-pass government funding bills. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has tacked a rider onto an Interior Department spending bill that would block federal agencies from adopting tough new rules governing hard-rock […]

Heard It Through the Pipeline

With wholesale prices for natural gas doubling in the last year, environmental concerns are taking a back seat as energy companies make plans to build one, maybe two, pipelines to carry gas from beneath the Arctic Ocean to population centers. Native groups that once opposed development are now seeing economic opportunities. Greenpeace opposes the idea […]

The Nitro of the Living Dead

In the past few decades, industrialization, population growth, and the heavy use of chemical fertilizers have doubled the amount of nitrogen in circulation, contributing to environmental problems worldwide and possibly human health problems like cancer and memory failure, reports the Baltimore Sun in a five-day series. Hardest hit are coastal bays and oceans — deadly […]

Cape Crusaders

South Africa outlined a sweeping conservation plan yesterday to protect biodiversity and estuaries across 35,000 square miles of the Cape Floral Kingdom, a region in the southwestern part of the nation. The ambitious plan, which is being hailed by enviros, aims by 2020 to set up a network of terrestrial and marine conservation areas, including […]

Beachy Keen

Congress passed a bill yesterday to expand the testing of coastal waters for pathogens and encourage states to warn beach goers when water is contaminated, and President Clinton is expected to sign it into law. The bill would offer states about $150 million over five years as an incentive to establish beach monitoring and public […]

Good Ideas in Short Supply

Believing that Al Gore is vulnerable on the issue of high oil prices, George W. Bush is planning to unveil an energy policy on Friday. It will include steps to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and boost domestic supply, said Lawrence Lindsey, Bush’s senior economic advisor. While Gore has proposed tax breaks and other […]

A New Lease on Life

Washington, D.C.-based Conservation International is trying a new approach to saving natural areas in developing countries: leasing trees. CI is working on a deal to buy the logging rights for up to 25 years for 200,000 acres of pristine rainforest in southern Guyana in South America, planning to spend several million dollars to protect the […]

MTVP

In an MTV town meeting yesterday in Ann Arbor, Mich., Al Gore said that after long deliberation he had sided with paper bags over plastic, more out of personal preference than solid scientific evidence that plastic was worse for the environment. On a more serious note, one student tempted to vote for Ralph Nader in […]