Latest Articles

Hungary for Some Boar

Croatia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia are embarking on an ambitious project to create a cross-border nature preserve of at least 250,000 acres at the confluence of the Danube and Drava rivers, Central Europe’s largest wetland. Hungary and Croatia will sign a cooperation agreement today, and unofficial talks are underway with Yugoslav biologists and ecologists. The area […]

Who Ya Gonna Call? Trust Busters!

Monsanto was hit with a class-action lawsuit yesterday, brought by a coalition of small farmers and farm groups that accuse the company of rushing genetically modified seeds to the marketplace without properly testing them for safety and giving farmers false guarantees about the marketability of genetically modified crops. The suit, filed by some of the […]

Killmore Trout?

The National Marine Fisheries Service wants to give state and local governments the lead role in protecting threatened salmon and steelhead trout in the Northwest and Northern California, a major policy shift that comes as part of federal regulations released this week. To avoid having to expand the federal bureaucracy to protect 14 populations of […]

Meow!

In what researchers are saying could be a big advance for endangered species, a house cat gave birth three weeks ago to a rare African wildcat. Scientists at the Audubon Institute Center for Research of Endangered Species in New Orleans said that they had transferred a frozen embryo between species, and that the house cat, […]

Arrested Development

Most executives say they want their companies to pursue sustainable development — that ubiquitous buzzword that can be loosely defined as incorporating environmental performance and social responsibility into business strategy — but few say that their companies have actually done so. Sounds like a golden opportunity for consultants to step in and lead business types […]

Forest Grump

The U.S. Forest Service has been hearing cheers and jeers during its public sessions across the country this fall on the Clinton administration’s proposal to protect some 50 million acres of roadless lands on national forests from development. Yesterday was no exception, as more than 500 hikers, hunters, loggers, off-road-vehicle users, and others gathered in […]

Put an End to Our Sulfuring

Within a few weeks, the U.S. EPA will likely announce its plan to cut back the level of sulfur allowed in gasoline and to put all vehicles, from small cars to sport utility vehicles, under the same set of pollution limits. The plan, which would begin taking effect in 2004, is expected to remain close […]

Slammy Davis

Demonstrators yesterday said they held the largest rally ever in the U.S. against genetically modified (GM) foods, as they protested in Oakland outside the last of three Food and Drug Administration hearings on the foods. However, in a sign that scientists might begin to actively defend biotech, about 30 professors and graduate students from the […]

Zoning Out

The Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico, which is rendered uninhabitable by marine life because of pollutants from the Mississippi River, was larger than ever this year, according to researchers at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. The zone topped out at 7,728 square miles in July — that is, about the size of New […]

And other words from readers

Re: Such Stuff as Dreams Aren’t Made On Dear Editor: I loved Donella Meadows’s confession and ode to stuff, junk, and accumulation. Like so many others, I could identify with her remarks. The column made me think of one of Henry David Thoreau’s quotes from the “Economy” chapter of Walden, which, of course, I could […]