Latest Articles
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Caspar, the Friendly Town
The 300-some residents of Caspar, an unincorporated village in northern California, have drawn up detailed plans for a model sustainable community that would run largely on solar power and include an electric-vehicle charging station, lots of open space, and affordable housing. They have proposed strict land-use regulations prohibiting new buildings that would negatively affect native […]
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Top Secret: You Could Die
The Clinton administration proposed a bill Friday that would let Americans living near dangerous chemicals know the casualty estimates for a worst-case accident in their region, while attempting to keep the information out of the hands of terrorists who might use it to plan an attack. The EPA last fall considered posting detailed worst-case chemical […]
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Going, Going … Gabon
Even as gorillas and chimpanzees in Central Africa are being wiped out by hunters, scientists are sounding the alarm that the animals need to be saved because they may be the key to finding a cure for AIDS. In January, scientists announced that H.I.V.-1, the most common AIDS virus, came from a subspecies of chimpanzee […]
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David Dobbs, New England environmental author
David Dobbs writes about the environment, community, and science from his home in Vermont. A contributor to Audubon, Sierra, Vermont Life, Popular Science, and other magazines, he is co-author of The Northern Forest and is now writing a book on the New England fishery, to be published next year. Sunday, 9 May 1999 MONTPELIER, Vt. […]
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Will the military protect the West's last best place?
As parks and forests in the West get overrun by tourists who love too much, the millions of acres controlled by the Department of Defense are suddenly looking sexier. In the Sonoran desert, for example, the last best place is a bombing range. It is a sign of the times that the 2.7 million-acre Barry […]
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Eco-Visionaries or Survivalist Kooks? You Decide
Solar power companies around the U.S. are getting a boost in sales from people who fear the impact of the Y2K problem. Some speculate that the millennium bug will cause massive failures in the nation’s power grid, though electric companies claim they have the situation under control. In another Y2K-related development, the French Institute of […]
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Don't Keep on Truckin'
The feds may make a fundamental shift in the way they regulate air pollution from factories by starting to consider the exhaust from truck traffic in and out of industrial sites as part of a factory’s pollution. The EPA won’t make a final decision until this fall about the proposed rules, which would make it […]
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Meshuggena!
Israeli farmers are refusing to cut back their water use by 40 percent despite government orders that are intended to get the country through a drought year. The government has offered to pay $39 million to compensate some 30,000 farmers for losses they would incur by reducing irrigation, but the farmers are demanding $73.3 million. […]
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Home, Home of Deranged
The state of Montana can continue to kill bison that wander outside Yellowstone National Park, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. The state is afraid that the bison will infect cattle with the disease brucellosis. More than 1,200 bison have been shot or shipped off to slaughter in the last three years. Enviros argue that […]
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Old McDonald Had a Farm — K-Y-O-T-O
The Kyoto climate change treaty’s impact on U.S. farmers would be relatively modest, even if energy prices rise, according to an Agriculture Department report scheduled to be released today. Meanwhile, as U.S. negotiators look toward the upcoming international climate change meeting in Bonn, the coal industry and conservatives in Congress are pressing for $2 billion […]
