Whacking Wood Waste
Chris Stapleton doesn’t fit the profile of an environmental pioneer. Yet, the burly third generation contractor has built a booming business around solving some of Connecticut’s waste problems.
On the Path
It is springtime in New York State. The elemental scent of thawed earth laces the air. Freeze-dried moss greens in the pale, lemon-yellow sunlight. Sunbeams filter through the pine boughs and lay in bright slivers on the forest floor. Wild turkeys lope silently across rust-colored pine needles. In the distance is the sounds of chopping. Another logging operation? No–happily it’s the sound of a hiking trail being cleared upstate–the northernmost reach of the appropriately named, eagerly awaited, Long Path.
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
A curious sight has appeared recently in the stark desert lanscape near Piedras Negras, Mexico: the towering smokestacks of a mammoth coal-burning plant called Carbon II. When finished, Carbon II will supply a big dose of Mexico’s growing power needs and hundreds of jobs. But it will also create an unwelcome export: sulfur dioxide emissions, vastly exceeding U.S. standards, that will drift north of the border.
The Winter Arrest Factory
For three days, the campers tried to enjoy the deep-freezer of a Maine winter, surrounded by hemlocks laden with snow and hardwood trees bare as bones. Layered in long underwear and anything else we have invented to live like polar bears, they passed their time by watching for large black and red crested pileated woodpeckers flashing through the trees, or by taking long, warming cross country ski trips on the 18-inch snowpack in Mt. Blue State Park. On the fourth day at 5:00 A.M., the call rang out for someone’s tent: "Trucks!" The 15 campers crawled out of their warm mummy bags and trundled out to the road to link arms against the logging trucks. By the end of the day, 13 of them sat in jail; by the end of the winter, 35 people had been arrested. And that was in 1993. The protestors kicked off 1994 by closing the company’s headquarters for a day, tree-sitting in the president’s yard and occupying Maine’s Department of Conservation offices, which led to 12 or more arrests.
No-Fly Zones
By following the dictates of various foreign governments, major U.S. airlines may well be running afoul of their own. What’s at issue is the spraying of occupied passenger planes with pesticides. This practice, called "disinsection," is required by a number of tropical and Pacific Rim nations before flights are permitted to land there. These countries, with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO), say such disinsection is necessary to prevent non-native disease carrying insects from being unintentionally imported as aircraft stowaways.
Turtle Diary
It’s October, and throughout the Northeast, box turtles are preparing for their winter hibernation. Some are beginning to bury themselves just beneath soil in wetland areas, while others are slowly trekking through cherry and bayberry thickets to find suitable spots. The reptiles are so well camouflaged and so deeply immersed in their thornym chaotically-branched, leaf-littered habitat that finding one at this time of the year is nearly a miracle.
Lobster Tails
While a full moon illuminated the gently rocking waters off Nicaragua’s eastern shore, some 40 Miskito Indians in dugout canoes and small boats paddled out to meet a weather-worn lobster boat. It was an historic October night in 1990. Bernard Nietschmann, a leading expert on the Miskito culture, was on board, along with Nicaragua’s natural resources minister, Jaime Incer, and conservationists from the Carribean Conservation Corporation, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the World Wildlife Fund. As a result of the moonlit meeting, Nicaragua established the Miskito Cays Protected Area in 1991, encompassing more than 5,000 square miles of reefs, seagrass beds and coastal wetlands.
Taming the Wilderness
When Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness Act in 1964 it was the first law of its kind in the world. It was a progressive notion, indeed, for an industrious, civilized country to protect large areas of roadless, resource-rich land for the sole purpose of keeping it uncivilized and theoretically, as wild as when Europeans still believed the Earth was flat.
John Schaeffer
John Schaeffer started out as an "urban refugee" living on a remote commune in California in the 1970’s. Tired of life without electricity, Schaeffer, a tinkerer, hooked up a solar-powerd television in his home–and he’s been finding innovative ways to introduce mainstream America to renewable energy ever since.
Okay, Okay–Here’s Another Look at Plastics
Art Graham is the very model of a socially responsible businessman. His business diverts garbage from the landfill, his plants obey emissions guidelines to the letter, and a framed certificate from former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) director William Reilly, commending him for service to the environment, hangs in the lobby of his factory. But here’s the catch: His business isn’t making compost, rahabilitating discarded wine bottles, or being entrepreneurial in any of the other ways beloved by environmentalists. His business is melting and reshaping polystyrene, better known by the brand name Styrofoam, into plastic "popcorn" shipping pellets.