Latest Articles

Book 'Em

Vice President Al Gore, in a new foreword to his 1992 book Earth in the Balance, renews his call to eliminate all internal combustion engines and take dramatic steps to curb global warming. Gore’s best-selling book is being reissued next week to mark the 30th anniversary of the first Earth Day, and some Republicans are […]

Spencer for Higher

Greenpeace is claiming moral victory after 13.5 percent of votes cast at BP Amoco’s annual shareholders meeting yesterday supported a Greenpeace-backed resolution that calls on the company to stop oil drilling in the Arctic and increase investment in solar energy. The motion was defeated, as expected, but the level of support it garnered surprised even […]

Bean Counting

3,300 — number of cups of coffee that are consumed each second worldwide 6.3 million — metric tons of coffee produced in the world in the 1999-2000 crop year 25 million — number of farmers who grow coffee worldwide, the majority on small-scale farms 600-800 AD — the era in which an Ethiopian goat herder […]

Fire on the Mountain

Enviros in Washington are apoplectic over what they fear will be a pre-Earth Day cave-in by the Clinton administration over mountaintop-removal mining in West Virginia. This used to be a mountain. Photo: David Miller, www.mountaintopmining.org. Readers may recall this battle from last year’s appropriations season, when powerful Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) introduced a rider that […]

Fire on the Mountain

Enviros are upset over what they fear may be an impending cave-in by the Clinton-Gore administration on the issue of mountaintop-removal mining in West Virginia. A federal judge ruled last year that the destructive practice, in which mining companies blast off the tops of mountains to get at coal and then bury nearby streams with […]

Giving Pandas a Leg Up

Some captive male pandas in China will soon be given the anti-impotence drug Viagra to boost their sex drive in an attempt to save the species from extinction. Scientists have tried a number of other methods to lift the animals’ sagging libidos, including traditional Chinese medicine, but most efforts to breed the animals in captivity […]

Biking the Hand That Feeds You

Pedal Express, a bicycle delivery company in Berkeley, Calif., has teamed up with a local nonprofit youth group to run a program that delivers fresh organic produce to Berkeley residents. Teenagers in Berkeley Youth Alternatives work part-time growing veggies on a half-acre community garden, earning money and school credit. Once a week, the produce is […]

Toad Kill

Frogs, toads, and other amphibians throughout the world are disappearing at an alarming rate, according to the biggest statistical study of the topic ever completed, published in today’s issue of the journal Nature. Researchers found that the overall numbers of amphibians dropped 15 percent a year from 1960 to 1966, and continued to decline about […]

That Leaves Plenty of Room for a Disney Rainforest Theme Park

Illegal logging and farming in Brazil’s Amazon last year destroyed 6,347 square miles of rainforest, an area bigger than Hawaii, according to a report released this week by the Brazilian government. The report found that despite increased policing of threatened areas, the pace of deforestation in the world’s largest rainforest remained as high in 1999 […]

Atlantic salmon are even worse off than their Pacific cousins

To catch an Atlantic salmon in the Machias River back in the 1940s — and we’re talking a legitimate salmon here, maybe 30 or 40 pounds — didn’t require a knack with rod and reel, nor even the wily patience of the angler. Mostly what you needed was decent aim with a rifle or pitchfork […]