Articles by Erik Hoffner

Seventy percent of world's uranium lies under native lands

"Nuclear Caribou" by Mark Dowie, in the new issue of Orion magazine, explains the drama playing out on a crucial caribou calving ground in Nunavut, in northern Canada. It is emblematic of a worldwide challenge to the sovereignty of indigenous communities in Africa, Asia, Australia, and North and South America.

As uranium mining companies rush to fill an expected spike in demand, they often are staking claims on native-owned lands. That's because, and I knew the number was high, but not this high: roughly 70 percent of the world's uranium resources are located under these communities, and about two-thirds of prospective uranium deposits in the U.S. are under or adjacent to Native American land.

It's not at all clear if the Nunavut claims will ever be mined, though it's looking more likely all the time. But then Winona LaDuke weighs in with an alternative vision for energy projects on native lands, a green one, that promises a better future for everyone concerned.

Utah ORV trail system a poor model

The Paiute ATV Trail, in central Utah's Fishlake National Forest, and adjacent BLM land comprise a network of roads and "motorized trails" that have been linked and promoted for off-road vehicle recreation by public lands agencies. The routes range from custom-designed ATV-only tracks to paved roads through small towns. The majority of the trail uses ordinary dirt roads on federal public lands, sharing them with general traffic.

Its supporters promote it as a win-win model for public lands throughout the nation, bringing in tourism dollars and resulting in less damage to the landscape overall: Theory has it that when you build and sign roads for off-road use, there's no need to go off-road.

Only not. As this story in Wildlands CPR's journal The Road RIPorter states, it doesn't lead to less damage, only more: the Fishlake has a higher density of "user created" routes than do many other forests without a designated ATV-trail system. And the economic benefit to the local area is overblown: The study on its fiscal impact does not stand up to scrutiny.

My advice to these guys: Take a hike.

Cataloging the unintended consequences and effects of gene tinkering

Here's a new database, Nontarget.org, that catalogs the unintended (nontarget) effects of the uncontrolled experiment being conducted with all life on earth: that is, GMOs.

When foreign genes are introduced into an organism, creating a transgenic organism or GMO, the results are almost always unpredictable. As the site says, "The intended result may or may not be achieved in any given case, but the one almost sure thing is that unintended results -- nontarget effects -- will also be achieved ... These facts have been, and are being, widely reported in the scientific literature. While they are correcting our understanding in important ways, they are not at all controversial."

Jeremy Piven's sushi addiction: good for mercury awareness

Whether you believe the Hollywood rumor that Jeremy Piven dropped out of the Broadway production of Speed-the-Plow due to a heavy regime of partying and a subsequent rehab session, or his doctor's assertion that the star was ill due to mercury poisoning from a high dose of sushi (two servings per day, Pivs? Good Lord), the winner in this agent's nightmare is awareness of mercury contamination.

Piven went on Good Morning America on Thursday to explain himself, warn about excessive consumption of fish high on the food chain like tuna, and point people to BlueVoice.org. BlueVoice correctly pins the blame largely on coal-burning power plants and their propensity to sprinkle lakes, rivers, and oceans with emissions high in methylmercury that bioaccumulates up the food chain. I'd call that, um, a quicksilver lining.