Even without global warming, Phoenix has been the poster child for what’s known as the heat-island effect. Asphalt radiates solar heat like a stovetop, creating a heat island where farmlands and desert have been paved over to make room for tract housing and some four million vehicles. The heat island has become a large land mass. And it’s getting hotter. Global warming and runaway development could make Phoenix hell on Earth—with freeways.
More than 28 million Americans patronize tanning salons each year, with young women constituting the fastest-growing group of users. A recent study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found a staggering 51 percent of high school girls visited tanning beds at least four times in the past year. "Laying out" is a cheap pastime—sessions under the lights run for roughly five bucks a pop—but dermatologists wonder about the long-term costs.
We’ve written about overpopulation many times in these pages because we think it is a profoundly important environmental issue. Yet it’s one that the green movement largely ignores, primarily for fear of alienating a public that may associate family planning with abortion or see attempts to curb immigration as racist.
The discovery of gold in the spiritually important Little Rocky Mountains in northern Montana is a curse that the Native-American community of Fort Belknap has lived with for more than 100 years. During the 19th century, the mountains were removed from the tribe’s reservation so prospectors could dig for gold. The community is still suffering, this time from the side effects of industrial-scale mining.
It may sound like an unusual pairing—protecting endangered species by putting them in the circus—but Ringling has become an actor in this new arena. In 1995, Feld Entertainment, Ringling’s corporate parent (which also owns the Disney on Ice and Siegfried and Roy shows), established the Center for Elephant Conservation (CEC), a $5 million, 200-acre Asian elephant breeding and research facility in Polk City, Florida. Since 1992, when Ringling began a breeding program, 15 elephants have been born, more than anywhere else in North America, including zoos.
A new movement called Take Back Your Time focuses on how overworking impairs all areas of life, including health, family and the environment. The movement is supported by such groups as the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy at Cornell University, The Simplicity Forum, the Simple Living Network and the Center for a New American Dream.
Rocky Flats nuclear facility became the Department of Energy’s (DOE) golden child in July when the last of the weapons-grade plutonium stored there was shipped away ahead of schedule. For nearly 40 years, Rocky Flats, just 15 miles northwest of downtown Denver, produced plutonium pits or "triggers" for thousands of the country’s stockpiled nuclear weapons. Remediation at the Flats, a highly contaminated Superfund site, is also moving forward dramatically under budget. Instead of the anticipated $37 billon, cleanup is now projected at $7 billion. In a time of federal budget deficits, and with Superfund’s core funding stream whittled away to $28 million, accelerated cleanup seems too good to be true. Many community members and environmental organizations—while happy to see the 6,400-acre site out of commission—are concerned that the project is being done in haste and find it unsettling that plutonium residue and toxins will be left several feet under the surface.
A local anti-fur rally I participated in years ago was attended by about 100 animal activists and a clique of 10 or so fur supporters, recruited by the fur show we were picketing. The local paper, which carried ads for all the local furriers, juxtaposed news photos of the two groups, giving the impression they were of equal size—and making sure to focus on the most unkempt individuals in the anti-fur crowd.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wears many hats, including president of the Waterkeeper Alliance and senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen 30 percent in the last century, but, again, that’s only a beginning. Until 1999, two gigatons of CO2 were added to the atmosphere annually. Since then, with the addition of huge releases from large-scale forest fires, we’ve added six gigatons.
