Latest Articles
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Gobi, Gobi, Gone
High prices for cashmere made from the wool of goats is leading in part to overgrazing of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. In the last decade, the number of livestock in Mongolia jumped more than 30 percent, and the number of herders rose by 300 percent, to about 440,000. Many of the newcomers to the […]
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Rara Avis
Travelers to some U.S. cities can now rent eco-friendly cars. EV Rental Cars opened its first site at the Los Angeles airport in December 1998 and has since expanded to several other California airports. The company recently struck a long-term deal with Budget Rent-a-Car and has plans to open sites this year in Atlanta, Dallas, […]
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Mall Rats
Days after the Clinton-Gore administration gave its endorsement last year to a controversial shopping complex to be built in a sensitive wetlands area in New Jersey, the development company’s executives and their relatives donated at least $31,000 to Al Gore’s presidential campaign. Enviros have long opposed the mall because it would require filling more than […]
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Beat the Tom Tom
Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) and a number of Republican state lawmakers asked a federal judge yesterday to suspend the EPA clean air regulations that require the use of smog-reducing reformulated gasoline in southern Wisconsin. They claim that the regulations are a big cause of high gas prices in the state, while the federal government […]
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How we could save both forests and jobs
The “roadless” road show swept the nation last week as U.S. Forest Service officials collected public comment on President Clinton’s initiative to prohibit road building in national forests where no roads now exist. What’s missing from this picture? Photo: U.S. Forest Service. The policy would affect 43 million acres across the country, including about 5.8 […]
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How Ballard is leading the charge to spread fuel cells far and wide
"Our long-term goal is very simple," said California Gov. Gray Davis (D) outside the state capitol in Sacramento in April 1999. "Zero emissions in the air. Zero. Nada. Nothing. Zip." A crowd had gathered to hear Davis announce a major new state initiative, and to see the latest non-polluting automobiles to be unveiled by DaimlerChrysler and Ford. Running on electricity, the peppy performance of these cars dazzled the spectators. The two auto giants promised to have them in commercial production around 2003 or 2004. A new era of environmentally friendly transportation had begun.
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Monumental Momentum
The Grand Canyon just got grander. Photo: Council on Environmental Quality. President Clinton has been on a national monument tear of late, setting aside eight areas encompassing more than 1 million acres since January. National monument status gives the federal government increased authority to prevent development and limit logging and other commercial and recreational activity […]
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I've Got Good News, and I've Got Bad News
In the spirit of celebrating every success, but only to the extent the success deserves, I would like to celebrate something that is kind of hard to describe. The rate at which things are getting worse is slowing down. We’re not going downhill as fast as we once were. The fever is high, but rising […]
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The Dark Side of Pak Moon
Poor citizens of Thailand have begun teaming up with non-governmental organizations and academics to protest environmentally destructive development projects being undertaken without their input. Over the past year and a half, thousands of people have demonstrated in the village of Pak Moon against a hydroelectric dam, funded in part by the World Bank, which is […]
