Latest Articles

Average Joes and Janes Can Make a Real Difference — No Foolin'

In the personal realm, most Americans are thoughtful, caring, generous. We try to do our best by family and friends. At times we'll even stop to help another driver stranded with a roadside breakdown, or to give some spare change to a stranger. But increasingly, a wall now separates each of us from the world outside, and from others who've likewise taken refuge in their own private sanctuaries. We've all but forgotten how much public participation is the very soul of democratic citizenship, and how much it can enrich our lives.

The Naked Truth

Nude protestors crashed the opening session of an international water conference underway today at the Hague, Netherlands. The inaugural speaker, Egyptian water resources minister Mahmoud Abu Zeid, looked on in stunned silence as a man and woman climbed up on stage in front of him, disrobed, and revealed to the audience their backs and buttocks, […]

Wednesdays with Morrie

Green and Bear It

Six major timber companies in British Columbia are working toward an agreement with enviro groups under which the companies would stay out of certain pristine tracts in the Great Bear Rainforest for the next 18 months if the enviros stopped urging customers to boycott the companies’ products. The two sides, which have long been locked […]

Well, It's New Jersey — What Did You Expect?

Despite Gov. Christine Todd Whitman’s (R) campaign to make New Jersey a national model for controlling growth and protecting open space, sprawl is still spreading out of control in the state. New Jersey’s failures demonstrate anew how money and the threat of job losses can undermine public land preservation policy. Merrill Lynch recently pushed through […]

Bite Me

Despite mounting controversy over genetically modified (GM) foods, many U.S. farmers plan to plant GM crops again this year because they are easier and cheaper to grow and there’s still a big market for them in the U.S. The major biotechnology companies, including Monsanto and Novartis, have held forums around the country this winter to […]

Let's Hope It's Not Oil-Slick Willy

President Clinton said yesterday that he will announce steps soon to deal with the rising costs of gasoline and oil. Enviros hope he’ll refuse to consider the environmentally damaging options being bandied about, which include removing the moratorium on offshore oil drilling and opening Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. Columnist Charles Krauthammer […]

Make Mine Manure-Covered

Re: Food for Thought Dear Editor: As a fan of organic produce and a local newspaper editor, I appreciated Donella Meadows’s article. She does a great job of rounding up and then refuting the stale critique of organic produce offered by Dennis Avery and his ilk. We need more articles like this in the mainstream […]

Better Homes and Gardens

Mary Cordaro has made a career out of what she learned trying to cope with her chemical sensitivities and allergies, starting a green design business that helps people make healthy homes free of harmful chemicals, lead, dust, and mildew. Cordaro has painstakingly sought out natural furnishings, paints, and building materials that her clients can use, […]

Put Him in the Stocks

Vice President Al Gore said this week that he will not divest himself of stock in Occidental Petroleum, despite the company’s controversial plans to drill for oil in the Colombian Amazon on ancestral land of the U’wa indigenous tribe. The U’wa fear the drilling will devastate land that they consider sacred, and last month hundreds […]