Latest Articles
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It's Not Curiosity That's Killing These Cats
A plan to reintroduce the lynx to southwestern Colorado’s San Juan Mountains is running into some grave problems — four of the 13 cats released in February and March have died of starvation and a fifth was recaptured in an emaciated state. The project of the Colorado Division of Wildlife had initially intended to move […]
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Song for the Bluefin Tuna
Carl Safina is a fanatic fisherman. He’s especially fanatic about ocean fish, which got him interested in seabirds, which got him into serious biology, which got him infuriated about what he was seeing in the fisheries, which got him to found the Audubon Society’s Living Oceans Program. All of which got him to write Song […]
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Handsome Ransom for Ignoble Chernobyl
Ukraine reneged on a pledge last week to shut down the last working nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, saying that the reactor would continue to operate until Western nations cough up $1.2 billion needed to complete two new replacement reactors. Today, on the 13th anniversary of the devastating nuclear accident at Chernobyl, Ukraine is still haunted […]
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Old McDonald Had a Fit
Europeans and others around the world are burning and uprooting test plots of genetically altered plants in protests that they call “decontaminations.” More than two dozen influential British consumer groups last month called for a five-year moratorium on genetically altered crops, while everyone from top chefs to McDonald’s in Britain have promised to eliminate the […]
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No Coal, No Nukes — No Profits?
Green Mountain Energy — which is racking up both customers and financial losses as it markets no-coal, no-nuclear power — is planning to make a public stock offering. The company has attracted 36,000 customers in Pennsylvania and 21,000 in California, states which have deregulated their electricity markets. In California, virtually all customers who have opted […]
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Dead Zone: A Dimension Beyond That Which is Known to Fish
The EPA is seeking a way to bring life back to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, a 5,000- to 7,000-square-mile area from which fish have largely disappeared. The problem is blamed in large part on fertilizer runoff from Midwest farms. The EPA should have a plan in place by next year to […]
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Quarter Quota Quibble
Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.) has introduced a bill that would prohibit the federal government from acquiring land in states where it already has title to more than 25 percent of the land. In the meantime, congressional Republicans are facing off against Democrats over the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, which takes tax revenues from […]
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Timber Feast, Salmon Famine?
Washington state may set a national precedent by passing a 50-year deal between the state and private forest owners that would grant tax relief to timber companies while tightening logging rules near salmon streams. The plan, being pushed through the state legislature this week, is part of Washington Gov. Gary Locke’s (D) salmon-recovery effort. The […]
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A review of 'Watching, from the Edge of Extinction'
Cynthia Salley makes an unlikely hero for an environmental fable. A Hawaiian cattle rancher, Salley has tussled for years with the National Audubon Society and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over an endangered species on her property. Yet the authors of Watching, from the Edge of Extinction credit her with saving the 'Alala, or Hawaiian crow.
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A review of 'Earth Odyssey' by Mark Hertsgaard
Will humans survive the environmental degradation we've loosed on the world, or will we drive ourselves to extinction alongside countless other species? Mark Hertsgaard sets forth to explore this question in his wide-ranging book Earth Odyssey: Around the World in Search of Our Environmental Future, and while he does not arrive at a vision of humanity on the brink of extinction, he presents a sobering portrait of problems present and impending.
