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 […]
Governor Jennifer Granholm Champions Smart Growth Well before she ran as a centrist Democrat and was elected handily to become the first woman to govern Michigan, Jennifer Granholm understood that joining urban Democrats with suburban Republican swing voters was her formula for victory. What ideas in the nation’s eighth-largest state could put black and ethnic […]
When Ohio University recycling manager Ed Newman wants to see how the campus is recycling he goes right to the heart of the matter—into the dumpster. Though numbers show that students and faculty are recycling a decent 25 to 30 percent of residence and dining hall trash, Newman finds a different story when he goes on a "dumpster dive" into one of the university containers.
A coalition of environmental groups led by Earthjustice last week filed suit against the Bush administration, asserting that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is failing to protect public health and violating the Clean Air Act by ignoring tons of unaccounted-for mercury emissions each year.
Scientists are attributing a rapid collapse of seabird populations around Great Britain’s Northern Isles in recent years to global warming. Rising sea temperatures, they say, are upsetting the delicate balance of the region’s ecological relationships. Microscopic plankton, which form the lowest rung on the marine food chain, are moving north as ocean waters warm, depriving small fish like sandeel of their primary food source. As these populations of small fish decline, area seabirds, which depend on them as food, stop reproducing and eventually starve.
Fresh, cool breezes waft in gently, rolling the sapphire water into a soothing rhythm. Colorful kites dance overhead, while kids shape forts, moats and towers out of the silky-soft sand. Nowhere is anyone arguing over upcoming elections or fretting over Al Qaeda’s next moves. But America’s beaches are nonetheless becoming battlegrounds of heated political debate, and have seen flip-flopping mirroring the shifting sands.
