On a beach in North Carolina, my cousin Andy pointed up to the night sky and said, "Look, there’s the Big Dipper!" My two girls, ages seven and 10, followed his hand and, after some squinting and trying really hard, were able to see that those dim beacons formed a pattern, one they’d seen in pictures.
Last week, frozen genetic tissue samples from an Arabian oryx, a spotted sea horse and a British field cricket were among the first specimens to be included in a unique project aimed at storing and preserving genetic material from 10,000 or so endangered species from around the globe.
Indeed, the first few years of the 21st century have played host to wildfires of unprecedented proportions throughout the American West, killing hundreds of people and displacing thousands more, while causing billions of dollars in property damage.
When the international environmental advocacy group Greenpeace made a decision in 2001 to invest in Shell Oil, it caused gasps in the environmental community, which wondered why the group, known for its daring tactics against polluters
It’s been a difficult year for opponents of whaling. In August, Iceland announced it would resume whale hunting after a 14-year hiatus. Norway—the only nation in the world that has a commercial whale hunt—killed 647 minkes, the largest catch since it resumed whaling a decade ago. Meanwhile Japan, which kills nearly 700 minkes for "scientific" […]
A wolf howls in the autumn morning, and is joined by three other voices. It could be Alaska, but instead it’s tony Westchester County in the suburbs of New York City, where no wolves have lived for more than a century. These wolves aren’t wild; they’re residents of the Wolf Conservation Center (WCC). WCC is […]
Each April, the people of Terrebonne Parish convene in Chauvin, some 80 miles south of New Orleans, for the Blessing of the Fleet, heralding the arrival of shrimp season. As spring gathers, though, a threat to this community’s traditional means of livelihood will begin to arrive. Hypoxia, or severe oxygen depletion, is forcing aquatic animals […]
Suppose in addition to your blue bin for recyclables, you had a green one for kitchen scraps? And suppose that those scraps were collected and mixed with yard waste, then processed in small, low-emission factories into compost and a clean fuel that could power your car? It sounds utopian, but it’s reality in Europe, where […]
Does it Speak for the Family Farmer—or for Large-Scale Agribusiness? Before he goes to his job as communications director for the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, Bryce Oates has to feed his free-range chickens, who are being raised on an antibiotic- and hormone-free diet. Like most farmers in Missouri, Oates can’t make a living from farming […]
Overharvesting Threatens the Booming Herbal Industry Officers confiscated plants with a market value of $250 to $500 per pound from two homes in New York. In Indiana, a two-year investigation led to the issuing of search warrants, misdemeanor charges and the bust of six traffickers. Ordinary drug dealers? Not quite. In both cases the plants […]
