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.
While there are no precise standards by which to judge how “green” any given celebrity may be, a number of entertainment luminaries come to mind for their outspoken support of environmental causes and their commitment to greener lifestyles.
I grew up on the Connecticut shores of Long Island Sound and spent many weekends fishing off the docks of Norwalk’s beaches with my dad. On some days his best friend would take us out fishing on the Sound in his motorboat. We were angling mainly for "snappers" (baby bluefish), but we never ate them. We would just let them die in the bucket and then bury them in the backyard, rationalizing that they were good for fertilizer.
I greatly enjoyed and mostly concurred with Jeremy Rifkin’s comparison of the American quality of life versus the European ("Learning from Europe," cover story, March/April 2005), but I cringed when I read that "…almost everyone [in Europe] has some small second home in the country somewhere…" Second homes, large or small, are definitely not part […]
