Do Computers & Phones Leach Arsenic When We Use Them?
Electronics manufacturers use arsenic as an efficient conductor of electricity, useful when periodic strong bursts are needed, but is it poisoning us?
Are there ways to recycle old athletic shoes?
Probably the best way to make your worn out sneakers go the extra mile is to recycle them through Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe program, which since 1993 has converted more than 15 million old athletic shoes (any brand, not just its own) into components in more than 170 community
Damage Control in New Orleans
In an interview with TV anchor Diane Sawyer, President Bush proclaimed confidently, "I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." The statement had about as much grounding in reality as one made a few days later by his mother, Barbara Bush, who was visiting Houston as part of Republican spin control and was favorably impressed with conditions inside the Astrodome: "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this–this is working very well for them," she said.
Ozone Layer On the Mend, Thanks to Montreal Protocol
Researchers monitoring Earth’s atmosphere for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report that the ozone layer has stopped shrinking and can now make steps toward recovery over the next several decades.
Katrina Turning Big Easy Into Big Cesspool
In what some analysts are calling the worst environmental disaster in recent history, New Orleans remains underwater following the wrath of Hurricane Katrina last week. The Big Easy’s extensive man-made levee system–built to protect the city, which lies largely below sea level in a geological bowl–may be turning a bad situation worse by keeping the surging floodwaters in the city, where they can harbor the disease-bearing viruses and bacteria that thrive in stagnant water.
Are any book or magazine publishers using recycled paper these days?
Environmental groups have been advocating for changes in the paper choices of the publishing industry for years. For one, Greenpeace’s Book Campaign has been working to convince publishers to switch from non-recycled “virgin” paper to more green-friendly recycled varieties.
Is it true that Exxon never paid the fines that were to help the local Alaskan
The $5 billion in civil charges levied against Exxon by a federal court in 1994 to cover ecological restoration for the Valdez oil spill—at the time, the largest punitive damage award in history—is still in legal limbo in appeals court 16 years later.
Stormy Weather: Can We Link it to Global Warming?
There was some excellent reporting done by journalists caught in Hurricane Katrina. At the Mobile Register, Ben Raines was still at his desk, even though he could see dumpsters floating past his window, and his newspaper office had become "an island unto itself by a record storm surge approaching 13 feet." The AC, phones and electricity were out, but the Internet was on, allowing Raines to get his e-mails out. Meanwhile, among members of the Society of Environmental Journalists, an intense Category 3 debate raged about the relationship between global warming and the intensity of hurricanes.
Can Immigration Save the Cities?
Wausau, Wisconsin may seem like the furthest thing from a global mega-city, but the forces in play in this small city are echoes of the worldwide issues of population and immigration. Over the past decades Wausau has received a large influx of Hmong, a nomadic Laotian hill people who fought under the direction of CIA advisors during the Vietnam War era. After their communist enemies won control of Laos in that country’s civil war, the Hmong were largely abandoned by the international community, and many fled for fear of being killed in retribution of their pro-American efforts.
Yet Again, Feds Choose Development Over Species Protection
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service announced last week that it is cutting the amount of land set aside for California’s threatened tiger salamander by nearly half, citing as unacceptable the expense of keeping the 184,000 acres in question off limits to development.