According to a recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health, particulate pollution can be directly linked to increasing the risk of cardiovascular problems and major heart failure in diabetics. The study, led by Harvard professor of environmental epidemiology Joel Schwartz, was published last June in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association (see […]
On May 26, federal court judge James Redden ruled, for the second time, that the federal salmon plan for the Columbia and Snake Rivers is unlawful (see "American Rivers," In Brief, July/ August 2000). In May 2003, Judge Redden had asked the Bush administration to rewrite the first plan. Redden takes issue with the National […]
Has the landmark federal cleanup legislation Superfund been a success or failure from the perspective of environmentalists?
If our "mega-cities" coverage in this issue doesn’t convince our readers and the substantial audience of international politicians and journalists also receiving it that the world has much bigger problems on its hands than terrorism, then I don’t know what will. On September 11, 2001 some 3,000 people died in one single savage act in one day. Yet around the world 10 times that many children die in one day, every day.
I read your cover story "Is the Green Movement in the Dumps?" (May/ June 2005), and I have some feedback as a lifelong green, educator and policy guy. George Lakoff has it right, but if he has to be paid $350,000 to "re-frame" the issues in plain English, then we are already dead. We are […]
The scent of sage and the pounding hooves of abundant wild game are a memory to the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Shoshone Indians in Utah…
Before this spring, Yosemite visitors hopped out of their vehicles in a cloud of exhaust smoke and gazed up at the gossamer falls from the cracked asphalt, the smell of sequoias and the sound of cascading water barely discernible. That visitor experience has been relegated to park lore with the completion this spring of a new transit plan that includes reforestation of the old parking lot, a shuttle stop, and a fleet of 18 hybrid buses.
The U.S. auto industry has its own peculiar logic. The thinking goes like this: Big SUVs have sold really well for us in the past. They’re really cheap to make, but we can charge a lot for them. By relying on mammoth land yachts we don’t have to worry about making cars that can compete with what’s coming out of Europe and Japan.
With high-grade marijuana now bringing in even higher profits than methamphetamine, and post-9/11 border security tighter than ever, Mexican marijuana cartels are digging their heels deep into American soil, most notably in wilderness areas on public lands in California, according to Joe Robinson of the Los Angeles Times. "Parts of Sequoia [National Park]
are no-go zones for visitors and park rangers during the April-to-October growing season, when drug lords cultivate pot on an agribusiness-scale," writes Robinson.
After a speech last month in San Francisco, an audience member asked Collapse author Jared Diamond if the threat of global warming augured a renewed role for nuclear power–as has been suggested recently by such environmental luminaries as Stewart Brand and James Lovelock. To the surprise of the audience, Diamond said he agreed: "To deal with our energy problems we need everything available to us, including nuclear power." Echoing the concerns of others, Diamond added that it should be done carefully "like they do in France" so as to avoid accidents.
