The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) announced last week that Japanese automakers continue to lead the pack in terms of lowering emissions and increasing fuel efficiency in their vehicles. Honda, Nissan and Toyota took top honors in the environmental group’s biennial survey of the vehicles made by the world’s top six automakers.
Genetic engineering is a technology that manipulates the genes of organisms and transfers them between species. While genetically engineered (GE) foods such as corn and wheat appear identical to their natural counterparts, they differ in that they contain genes from bacteria, viruses, insects, nuts or animals.
Studies show that perchloroethylene—the solvent used by the vast majority of dry cleaning establishments—is both hazardous to human health and injurious to the environment. For one, “perc,” as the solvent is commonly known in the industry, can have negative effects
I’m appalled at the NIMBY ("not-in-my-back-yard") opposition to wind power projects like Cape Wind in Massachusetts. How do these graceful wind turbines destroy our view? Are they worse than the endless power lines that stretch across the country, the coal plants and oil refineries, the offshore oil rigs and tankers (and their spills), and the ominous nuclear towers that have become symbols of another impending Chernobyl?
While ethanol is cleaner and more efficient to produce than gas, environmentalists often give this alternative fuel the cold shoulder. The ethanol source of the future, some say, should be not the corn kernel but the stalk, cob and other portions of the plant that are currently fed to livestock or left lying on the field.
San Francisco Bay-area municipal governments are working to grow sustainable communities, by passing green building ordinances, requiring energy-efficient designs, recycled content and a host of "green" strategies for public projects.
Hawthorne Valley Farm is home to dairy cows, some piglets and a team of biodynamic farmers. There’s also a high-energy bunch of nine-to-15-year-old urbanites cheerfully turning the compost, helping bake sourdough bread in the bakery, milking dairy cows and rising at six a.m. to feed the animals.
A Norwegian environmental group is defying mainstream environmental thinking by supporting the controversial process known as carbon sequestration as a short-term way of tackling climate change.
The builders of the mammoth Three Gorges reservoir in China are poised to begin another project. The giant hydropower company plans to dam China’s famous Tiger Leaping Gorge, where the sheer cliffs of snow-crested peaks flank the thundering Jinsha River to form one of the deepest and most majestic canyons on Earth.
For more than 100 years, Tokyo and Washington were content with domination of Okinawa’s land. Now, say environmental groups on both sides of the Pacific, the United States Marine Corps has come for the sea as well.
