For most of us, trotting off to the grocery store is an unloved chore donw on automatic pilot. No wonder, then, that how we get those groceries home is the last thing on our minds. But the environmental impact of supermarket bags is daunting. And t he best choice–cloth–is nowhere in sight.
Since the early 1960s, scientists have observed some shocking mutations in wildlife–hermaphroditic seagulls with both male and female sex organs, eagles with crossed beaks, panthers born with undescended testicles, alligators with shriveled penises (see Currents January/February 1996), and fish gonads which aren’t distinctly male or female.
June 3, 1994 was an ideal day for a home garden tour in Tulsa, Oklahoma–the weather was beautiful and the plants were in full bloom. That day, over 800 people had visited Evelyn Connor’s garden, and they had been impressed by her lush naturalistic landscape, which includes Mullien pinks and a mass of three-foot-high native purple cornflowers.
Even the most remote trails in Nepal are littered with bright orange Kodak film boxes and granola bar wrappers. So what’s a solitdue-loving ecotourist to do? the best bet these days is to buy a ticket to Australia, where the population density is among the lowest in the world and the Outback offers thousands of square miles of untrampeled wilderness.
Not long ago, the idea of a corporate "environmental report" was a glossy brochure featuring a duck-filled lake, a tree-filled forest, and a bunch of smiling kids playing on the beach. If the company was really brave, it might picture its factory–but always around nature’s finest.
College probably hasn’t changed very much in the past few decades when it comes to student life. Semesters are measured by how many nights were spent at the library huddling over a large cup of coffee and a History of the Modern World book. You can’t call yourself an undergraduate student unless you’ve attempted to print out a last-minute essay only to discover your printer has run out of black ink. Yes, you do get marked down if you hand in an essay in pink ink. I know I’ve destroyed at least a small forest in how many copies I’ve made while conducting research.
American opposition to strong action to curb carbon dioxide emissions has led to a rift between leaders of the world’s industrialized nations–the so-called "Group of Eight," or G8–who met last week in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Bush administration’s continued resistance to signing onto forceful measures to combat global warming looks to jeopardize one of UK prime minister Tony Blair’s major goals for his year-long presidency of the G8 group.
In yet another example of how global warming is wreaking havoc on the Earth’s environment, a group of leading scientists from the UK’s Royal Society released a report last week detailing how industrial carbon dioxide emissions have led to the increased acidity of the world’s oceans and is in turn causing irreparable harm to marine ecosystems and the living creatures therein.
When Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt visited the Great Falls Park in Virginia last year, he found no one at the entrance to take his fee. When he inquired, the superintendent said she was one of the only three employees on duty and the other two were on emergency calls.
Sewage treatment plants are required to abide by federal odor and nuisance laws devised to protect residents. Some plants build enclosures for the treatment tanks, thereby containing the smells.
