Latest Articles

One man's quest to prove that bigger isn't better for the planet

Long before the special-effects wizards made Stuart Little into a silver-screen sensation, E.B. White’s diminutive hero held a hallowed spot in a storytelling tradition that ranges from Gulliver’s Travels and “Jack and the Beanstalk” to Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. The basic idea: Make the workaday world utterly fantastic by changing the scale. Or, most […]

Once More Into the Bleach

The highest sea temperatures ever recorded in the Caribbean have caused the first mass die-off of coral in Belize in 3,000 years, and scientists suspect that global warming and the El Ni&ntildeo weather phenomenon are to blame. The high temperatures in 1998 lasted for several months and caused much of the Belizean coral reef to […]

Delay of the Land

More than 100 enviro groups yesterday petitioned the Clinton-Gore administration to temporarily prevent development on 160 million acres of roadless federal areas in the West managed by the Bureau of Land Management. They are asking the BLM to reinventory the land to determine how much should be protected as wilderness, contending that past BLM inventories […]

No Problem Atoll

The Nature Conservancy unveiled an agreement yesterday under which it will raise $37 million to purchase and maintain the Palmyra Atoll, a privately owned cluster of pristine coral islets about 1,000 miles south of Hawaii. The conservancy wants to create a nature preserve for marine and climate research and allow limited, ecologically sound tourism on […]

Logging on the Skids

After nine years of political battles and scientific studies, the U.S. Forest Service this week released a broad management plan for California’s Sierra Nevada range that would emphasize wildlife protection and recreation over commercial logging. The proposal for managing 11 million acres of national forests would cut cattle grazing, protect most big old-growth trees, and […]

Green Mountain's Green's Mountin'

Oil giant BP Amoco and a group of unnamed investors announced yesterday that they will invest as much as $100 million in GreenMountain.com, a company that sells renewable energy and natural gas as alternatives to power from dirtier sources. GreenMountain, which already has more than 100,000 residential customers in California, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, plans […]

Celling Like Hot Cakes

Texaco yesterday announced a sizable investment in fuel-cell technology, agreeing to pay $67.3 million for a 20 percent stake in Energy Conversion Devices Inc., an alternative energy company. Texaco plans to work with ECD to develop fuel cells, which combine hydrogen and oxygen to make power, as well as other alternative fuel technologies. Fuel cells […]

Cutting Through the Crop

The Clinton-Gore administration today is unveiling a proposal to tighten the regulation of genetically modified (GM) foods, but the plan falls far short of what consumer and enviro groups say is needed to protect public health and the environment. The proposal would require, among other things, that biotech companies notify the Food and Drug Administration […]

Wet's the Matter?

1.1 billion — the number of people worldwide who lack an adequate and safe supply of water for their daily needs, approximately one in five 5 million — the number of people, mostly children, who die each year from illnesses caused by poor-quality water supplies 5 — the minimum number of gallons of water needed […]

A Site for Sore Eyes

GreaterGood.com, an online shopping portal dedicated to charitable giving, yesterday launched the Rainforest Site, a website that lets people protect 19.2 square feet of rainforest with a single click of the mouse, as often as once a day. A group of rotating site sponsors pay for donations to a Nature Conservancy program that purchases and […]