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Bobby's World

Ralph Nader’s contention that there is no difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush is “irresponsible” and his campaign threatens the environment by potentially tipping the election toward Bush, writes Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in an op-ed in today’s New York Times. Kennedy, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council and one of […]

See You Later, Alligator

Scientists have been warning for years about shrinking amphibian populations, but now some researchers are saying that reptiles could be in even worse straits. Reptiles are in decline globally and a number of species face extinction, according to an article published in the journal Bioscience. For example, most species of sea turtles in warm oceans […]

Lighting Las Vegas

The U.S. government plans to boost the development of geothermal energy systems in Western states, with the aim of having 10 percent of the West’s electricity generated by the earth’s heat within 20 years, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced yesterday. Richardson detailed 21 partnerships between private industry and the Department of Energy to fund geothermal […]

Wild Horseshoe Crabs Couldn't Drive Virginia Away

In an effort to restore the devastated population of horseshoe crabs, the U.S. announced plans yesterday to create a 1,800-square-mile sanctuary stretching from Delaware Bay into the Atlantic where catching the crabs will be prohibited. U.S. Commerce Secretary Norman Mineta also threatened to shut down Virginia’s horseshoe crab fishing industry unless the state reduces its […]

Democrats to See L.A. Skyline

As Los Angeles prepares to host the Democratic National Convention next week, local officials are talking up the city’s improved air quality. Since 1960, the last year the city hosted the DNC, the region has reduced its peak ozone levels by 68 percent. There were no smog alerts in the city last year and there […]

Horns Aplenty?

The endangered African rhinoceros seems to be making a comeback, with numbers now higher than at any time since the early to mid-1980s, according to a new report by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and World Wildlife Fund. The IUCN estimates that there were some 13,000 African rhinos in the wild in 1999, compared to […]

We're Not Out of the Woods Yet

The global rate of deforestation seems to be slowing, according to a preliminary study by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). In some regions, most notably the tropics, destruction of forests declined by as much as 10 percent from the 1980s to the 1990s. Major causes of forest loss include large development projects that […]

Western lawmakers in Washington need to get with the times

Historians looking back on the turn of the millennium may well call it the golden age of conservation. In recent years, we have witnessed bold national efforts to protect the last wild places of the U.S. Western politicians could move mountains. Many of these lands are in the West, a place that itself is going […]

I'll Take the Lowe Road

Lowe’s Cos., the second-largest home-improvement retailer in the U.S., announced today that it plans to phase out wood products that come from “endangered forests,” starting with an immediate ban on the purchase of wood from the Great Bear Rainforest region of British Columbia. The company’s pledge follows a similar one made last year by Home […]

Joe Cool

Al Gore yesterday chose as his running mate Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), a strong environmental advocate who has earned a 95 percent rating from the League of Conservation Voters over the course of his Senate career. Lieberman cosponsored the 1990 Clean Air Act; introduced legislation in 1991 to give citizens more information about pesticide dangers; […]