United States
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Frog Days of Summer
For the first time, scientists have found evidence linking agricultural runoff to the rise in grotesque hind-limb deformities in frogs. In the past, the deformities were associated with a common parasite, the burrowing trematode worm, which seemed to affect the development of tadpoles. Now, writing in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National […]
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When it comes to renewable energy, the DOE is DOA
The question isn’t whether the Bush administration is in bed with the old-school energy industry; most of us have pretty much accepted that Big Oil and King Coal are the current sexy interns in the White House. Nor is the question whether we should be bracing for another oil shock; given the Iraqi oil boycott […]
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Is the U.S. nuclear industry writing its own ticket on security?
Over the last 15 years, the nuclear power industry has lobbied the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Congress to weaken security requirements at atomic plants, even as the threat of terrorism has grown. But in reality, as Shelley Smithson shows in Part I of this series, nuclear energy security is already poor. In drills conducted by […]
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A look at the hiring practices at U.S. nuclear power plants
Could the Sept. 11 hijackers have gotten jobs at nuclear power plants? Under the current rules governing nuclear safety, at least some of them could have easily gone to work as janitors, carpenters, computer programmers, or other plant employees, according to Dave Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer who works for the Union of Concerned Scientists. […]
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How secure are U.S. nuclear power plants?
Roughly 40 miles from the rubble of the World Trade Center, U.S. Navy cutters patrol the chilly waters of the Hudson River. Military planes circle overhead. On the ground, members of the National Guard stand ready. The Indian Point nuclear power station, which churns out electricity to nearly 2 million homes around New York City, […]
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David Brower leaves a legacy for dolphins
The one-year anniversary of the death of environmental legend David Brower has come and gone, just a week after the U.S. Department of Justice decided not to appeal a dolphin protection lawsuit the Earth Island Institute filed with Dave back in 1999. Dolphins on the run. Photo: NOAA. For reasons that are still unknown, a […]
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Meredith Hall reviews Tinkering with Eden and Nature Out of Place
I love my hometown, but I have a bone to pick with a few of its inhabitants -- especially the green ones. It's not the lively Nader supporters of Portland, Ore., that I have hard feelings for, but rather the guileful botanic creepers that go by the common name English ivy. Botanic enemy number one is a luscious green forest dweller, a lazy gardener's groundcover, a symbol of old-world garden sophistication -- and, in Portland, an insidious invasive species. English ivy (Hedera helix, for the botanically savvy) infests more than half of the city's forests, choking out trees, ferns, and any other struggling forest undergrowth.
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Gluttony at home is not necessary for victory abroad
My grandmother, the family provider in World War II’s market of scarcity, pleaded — or was it flirted? — with the butcher for meat. My father, who couldn’t hit his hat with a hammer, volunteered for military service and wound up in Boston army ordinance helping “our boys” make munitions. On “the home front,” my […]
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Elizabeth Grossman reviews Affluenza and Red
There's been a tendency since Sept. 11 to reconsider everything in light of that horrific tragedy. I've tried to resist that inclination, but I had read both Affluenza and Red before that day and could not ignore the way the attacks highlighted the importance of the books' divergent subject matters: our desire for the good life, which has made us the greatest consumers on earth; and the need to protect the wild places which that pattern of consumption threatens.
