In 1993, the U.S. government passed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) promising it would promote jobs. In reality, according to Sarah Massey of the AFL-CIO Americas Union Movement, it lowered wages, heightened unemployment and increased pollution. Massey argues that the proposed Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is "going to be a failure just like NAFTA."
The widespread dissatisfaction among campus activists after President Bush’s reelection prompted student liberals to create the Roosevelt Institute (RI), the first student-run progressive think-tank, guided by the principles of Teddy, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. These young thinkers are adopting a strategy most often used by the right—incubating student opinion and creating a new generation of leaders.
With their elegant profiles, mute swans are the stars of many a fairy tale, but in real life they have become creatures of controversy. Some environmental groups and wildlife managers want to rid North America of the birds, which are native to Eurasia. Animal rights groups and some swan enthusiasts want to protect them.
"Six thousand kids die each day because of water-related diseases. That’s like 12 full 747s crashing every day." The speaker was Ryan Hreljac, age 13, addressing a room full of adults gathered for the launch of the Water Culture Network (WCN) at the Chelsea Piers in New York City. Despite his youth, Hreljac was speaking as a dedicated campaigner in the water wars.
Working out of a corner of a sunny Manhattan apartment, 49-year-old Kristin Bergfeld runs an innovative housecleaning and estate clearance business whose unwavering adherence to ecological principles might seem odd in New York, a city better known for its litter-strewn sidewalks and discarded automobile tires floating in the East River.
Comedian David Brenner once quipped that perhaps the best way to deal with air pollution might be to let it continue unabated so that eventually the particles would all get so big they would simple no longer fit up our noses.
On a mind-swept plateau atop Wyoming’s 10,000 foot Medicine Mountain, lies and ancient "Medicine Wheel." At its center is a buffalo skull carefully placed within a rock mound. Twenty-eight spokes radiate out to a circle of limestone rocks about 80 feet in diameter.
Something ugly is gorwing in the sea and it’s beaffling the best brains in biology. An epidemic of tumors is ravaging reptiles from the Caribbean to the South Pacific. Fibropapilloma, biologists call the disease, but they admit they know far too little about why it is attacking the already-endangered green sea turtle.
A decade ago Jacksonville, Florida was one malodorous metropolis. Aromas reminiscent of rotten eggs and industrial-strength sour lemons wafter through town. Indeed, nearly three-fourths of the city’s air pollution complaints were odor-related, the chief culprits being pulp mills, a watewater treatment facility, organic chemical plants, incinerators, and food and manure processing plants.
Avid followers of Arnold Schwarzenegger should probably avoid The Video Project, a tiny, two-rom shop in Oakland, California. For 10 years, the shop has housed several hundred thought-provoking alternatives to the Hollywood blockbusters crowding the average video emporium. The diversity of their collection is impressive, ranging from the plight of Tibetan refugees to the "eco-rap" performances of urban youth. But the productions share a common purpose, notes executive director Steve Ladd: "informing people about how to create a safe and sustainable world."
