The Yerington Anaconda Mine in northern Nevada was one of the world’s largest producers of copper from 1953 to 2000. Today, nearby residents complain the defunct site is a major polluter. The Yerington Paiute Tribe’s (YPT) Campbell Ranch Reservation is barely three miles north, downwind from the 3,500-acre mining property and squarely in the path of any contaminants that might leave the mine.
Scientists are applying ecological lessons learned in the aftermath of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption to restore sites that were logged or mined.
Snow leopard pelts command high prizes in the black market fur trade, while bones from these wild cats are in demand as remedies prescribed by traditional Asian medicine. However, half a world away, the snow leopard is being marketed in an entirely different way—one that may help ensure its survival.
About five million cats and dogs are killed every year in the U.S. because there is not enough room to house them in adoption centers, and not enough people adopting.
The tree-lined streets have an eeries quietness. The neighborhood, with its orderly rows of World War II-era homes, looks as though there should be activity, but there is none. The grass is cut and the trees and bushes are trimmed, suggesting some civility to the shady streets, but these tasks are preformed by the state to ward off trespassers. Such efforts have plainly been in vain, as many homes are married by graffiti, vandalism and looting.
From mid-May to mid-August, there is almost continuous daylight in Iceland, which gives the tiny island (39,000 square miles) country a short but intense growing season. Iceland touches the Arctic Circle at its northern tip, and the cold limits the range of crops, through cabbage, cauliflower and potatoes thrive, and tomatoes and cucumbers manage well in greenhouses heated by Iceland’s huge reserve of geothermal energy.
Climate experts warn us that the first sign of a shifting climate will be turbulent, unpredictable weather. So when Hurricane Jeanne crashed ashore in Florida in September of 2004, environmentalists couldn’t help but wonder if this was it: climate change in action. It seems as though the past few years have been characterized by all sorts of weather extremes. We know that the planet has warmed 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 100 years, but is there really a link between our weather and climate change?
What happens to empty plastic soda bottles left out on the curb for recycling? Would you believe they’re made into luggage racks and door padding for cars?
After every meal she and her family eat at home, Philadelphian Happy Fernandez dumps food scraps into a big plastic bag she keeps in her refridgerator. Then on Sunday and Wednesday nights, she puts the accumulated waste into a bucket and sets it out curbside. By morning, the bucket is empty and a contented group of New Jersey pigs is burping in satisfaction over a gourmet breakfast.
Quiet, dusty Rockport, Texas is a shrimping and sport fishing center, a vacation destination for "winter Texans" from the Midwest, and one of the only places in the world to see the endangered whooping crane, the largest bird in North America.
