Don’t even try trashing that half-eaten salad at the University of Oregon’s (UO) Annual Folk Festival, the University of Vermont’s (UVM) Orientation Picnic or Humboldt State University’s Spring Fair. The trash stations are manned, making sure you recycle everything from your food-smeared paper plate to soy sauce-soaked chopsticks.
Nearly a century after zoning was introduced to prevent the ravages of uncontrolled land development, the concept is moving offshore to protect ocean resources. From Canada’s Scotian Shelf to the state waters of Massachusetts and the entire ocean territory of New Zealand, ocean managers are increasingly looking to large-scale zoning as a way to manage emerging conflicts and plan for future uses of the sea.
In New Orleans, environmental justice activists lead bus tours into the heart of "cancer alley"—the riverside stretch of power plants, oil refineries and other industries that harms the health of so many Crescent City residents. They talk about the Bucket Brigades, a community organizing effort that’s gone global, defending neighborhoods worldwide from industrial pollution.
Scientists studying the aftermath of the Larsen-B ice shelf collapse in Antarctica say it will very likely have unpleasant implications for the rest of us. The collapse of the Larsen-B and its smaller northern neighbors, the Larsen-A and Wordie Ice shelves, in the face of warmer summer temperatures has caused the vast glaciers and ice sheets behind them to begin sliding into the sea at a remarkable pace.
A distant relative of the common domestic ferret, the wild black-footed ferret of North America is endangered, in large part because of the mass die-off of its main food source—prairie dogs—at the hands of poisoning, shootings and diseases (see "Open Season on Varmints," cover story, July/August 2004).
Twenty years after an Indian Union Carbide plant leaked poisonous gas and killed 20,000 people (see "Dumping on India," <I>In Brief</I>, September/October 1996), Bhopal residents continue to drink contaminated water, suffer from disease and bear children with birth defects.
The controversial Wal-Mart Supercenter is now open for business in the heart of New Orleans" historic Lower Garden District (see "Urban Wal-Marts: No Big Easy," <I>In Brief</I>, November/December 2003), but it’s still not out of the courts.
What explains the fact that most European cities gracefully end at some point, giving way to green countryside at their edges, unlike the endless miles of sprawl in America? How is it that public life and street culture feel so much richer?
Ask Americans what they most admire about the U.S.A. and they will likely cite the individual opportunity to get ahead. Ask a European what they most admire about Europe and they will invariably say "the quality of life." To understand why Europe has left America behind in the race to create a sustainable society, we need to look at the very different dreams that characterize the American and European frame of mind.
At the very top of the list of environmental priorities for the EU is the plan to become a fully integrated renewable-based hydrogen economy by mid-century.
