World Environment Day was celebrated June 5 in San Francisco, the first time it was held in the U.S. The event commemorates the anniversary of the first World Conference on the Environment in Stockholm in 1972. The organizer of that meeting, Maurice Strong, has been an energy-sector CEO, an adviser to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the convener of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
Everyone’s familiar with the concept of the "open house," but suppose instead of McMansions you could visit only energy-efficient homes heated by solar or geothermal energy, with electricity provided by the wind? Sounds like an alternate universe, right? Well, you actually can go on such a magical journey when the Colorado-based American Solar Energy Society sponsors the National Solar Tour.
With 120 green or "living roofs" built or planned citywide, including one on City Hall, Chicago is pioneering a trend that has taken off across North America. The impetus came from Mayor Richard M. Daley, a proponent of green technology who was impressed by the green roofs he saw when traveling in Europe—where they’ve been built for 30 years and have become commonplace. "Building green roofs "is a very important initiative for the mayor," says Chicago Green Projects Administrator Michael Berkshire, an urban planner.
Fifteen years from now, 28,000 trucks a day, many of them hauling double or triple trailers, may be speeding up and down special truck lanes on Virginia’s Interstate 81, belching tons of carbon monoxide into the Shenandoah Valley each year. Proponents of "toll truckways," such as the influential libertarian Reason Foundation think-tank, believe they are the wave of the future and the answer to the nation’s transportation needs.
In a scientist’s photomosaic taken in 1972, wetlands along the Five Mile River included a small island surrounded by thin ribbons of water and covered grasses that typify a healthy New England salt marsh. In a contrasting set of photos from 2000, all that remains of the island is a puddle-pocked mudflat. The photographs depict a troubling phenomenon along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts: Tidal wetlands that have been healthy for hundreds, if not thousands, of years are rapidly breaking up and converting to open water.
There are only about 20,000 orangutans left in the world, and their numbers are dwindling rapidly. The Sumatran Orangutan Society suggests that the animals may be extinct in the wild within 10 years. The "man of the woods" once spread across Southeast Asia, but is now limited to the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. The […]
Wildlife officials are becoming increasingly worried about chronic wasting disease (CWD), a/k/a "mad deer disease," which has been detected in wild and captive deer and elk in 12 states (see "What About Mad Deer Disease?," Features, July/August 2001). First detected in 1967 in Colorado, the fatal neurological disease causes weight loss, stumbling and tremors. CWD […]
A study conducted for the New York Times last March found that six of the eight New York City fish vendors tested were falsely selling farm-raised salmon as wild. The story unfolded when the Times realized that many of the stores were selling "fresh" wild Pacific salmon in the fish’s off-season. People covet wild salmon […]
Back in 1996 controversy erupted over the initial attempt to clone Dolly, the now-famous ViaGen legacy sheep. That controversy is beginning all over again with former ViaGen President Scott Davis’ present attempts to bring Dolly’s relatives to a grocery store in your neighborhood.
Wildlife researchers have released four rare bog turtles into the wild. These turtles (<I>Glyptemys muhlenbergii</I>), considered the rarest turtle species in North America, marked the first group of the federally threatened species to be let loose in Georgia.
