Latest Articles

Zed, last of his species, in "Over the Watercooler"

Sigh-anide

Concern about cyanide pollution is sprouting up in spots around the world in the wake of a massive spill at a Romanian gold-mining operation last month that killed hundreds of tons of fish in the Tisza and Danube rivers and contaminated the drinking water source for 2 million people. Chinese authorities have shut down nine […]

Let's Make This Gas Ex

The controversial gasoline additive MTBE can cause headaches, fatigue, and eye irritation in some people, according to a study released Friday by Rutgers University researchers. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) cited the study in calling for a three-year phaseout of MTBE, which is added to gasoline to make it burn more cleanly but has been blamed […]

Roll Over, Colombia, Roll Over

Colombia’s rainforests and wildlife are becoming victims of the war over drugs. Since the mid-1990s, tens of thousands of acres of virgin rainforest deep in the Amazon have been chopped down to clear land for the planting of coca and opium poppies, the sources of cocaine and heroin. Additional ecological problems are caused when the […]

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

More than 70 tree species used to make popular musical instruments are at risk of going extinct, according the conservation group Fauna and Flora International, which has launched a new program to help preserve the trees. Species in trouble include the African blackwood, used for making clarinets and oboes; Brazil’s pau brasil, used to make […]

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

In a dramatic turnaround, British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sunday acknowledged what most people in his country have long believed: that genetically modified crops may pose risks to human and environmental health. “There is no doubt that there is potential for harm, both in terms of human safety and in the diversity of our […]

Notes on the Underground

The February issue of Scientific American tells of a new technology that makes me both rejoice and worry. It looks so great, so likely to relieve a massive environmental problem that there’s no way I could oppose it. But on second, third, and fourth thought, I have some doubts. The technology is called carbon sequestration. […]

As Long As It Doesn't Drive Up the Cost of Happy Meal Toys

The U.S. environmental community is debating whether to actively oppose the Clinton administration’s plan to give China permanent normal trade relations status as China prepares to enter the World Trade Organization. Some enviros are hesitant in an election year to label House Democrats as “anti-environmental” if they vote for normal trade relations, and some worry […]

Greenslinging

The environment — oh-so-neglected for much of the presidential campaign (as we noted in past columns) — has bubbled up to the top of the issue mix in recent days. While the Republican battle royale between Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Arizona Sen. John McCain still steals most of the ink and gets the […]

Why we need to push livestock off public lands

Whatever might be said of the arid West, it “ain’t no cow country.” That’s what Henry Fonda, playing Wyatt Earp, said of Arizona in John Ford’s 1946 film My Darling Clementine. That’s also the bottom line of a book I’ve written, The Western Range Revisited: Removing Livestock from Public Lands to Conserve Native Biodiversity. In […]