Just a few years ago, Internet purists were arguing that cyberspace should be kept totally free of vulgar commercial content. In 1995, with 30 million users around the world (76 percent of them in the U.S.), it’s the ad-driven part of the World Wide Web that’s growing the fastest. In 1994, there were only 588 commercial Web sites; now there are more than 15,000, with 73 new ones added every day. Some 66 percent of Internet "servers" now handle commercial traffic exclusively.
Linda Zander, a dairy farmer in Lynden, Washington, says that she and her husband are seriously ill from the sewage sludge spread on a neighbor’s farm. Zander, who now heads Help for Sewage Sludge Victims, recently won a civil suit which found that the sewage had fouled her air and contaminated her well. Patti Baker of Elkrun, Ohio was cheering her victory. The former runner says she can hardly walk upstairs after sludge fertilizer, spread on a nearby stripmine, seeped into her well.
Rosalind Wallace and Gretchen Roffler were both lucky and smart when they encountered a mountain lion in the remote reaches of Olympic National Park last summer. The two park employees, who were doing spotted owl surveys at the time, did everything right. They stayed upright, always above the lion. They stood their ground and didn’t even think about running. They looked the cat directly in the eyes. Most important, they made sure not to act like prey.
Legend has it that under the hills around Winchester, England’s ancient capital lies a sleeping dragon. Only when the tribes of Britain gather once again upon it’s head at Twyford Down would the dragon awake to protect the land and banish tyranny from the shores.
If ever there was an environmentalist perfectly comfortable with technology, it is Stewart Brand, the founding editor of the legendary Whole Earth Catalog and later, The Whole Earth Review. Sympathetic with the plight of the plundered Earth since studying biology at Stanford University in the late ’50s, Brand has always been an enthusiastic proponent of putting tools into the hands of worthy users. Anyone who’s gotten their hands on those catalogs–whether they’re from the ’60s or the ’90s–knows Brand believes wholeheartedly that putting the right tools in the right hands can change the world for the better. "We are as Gods and might as well get good at it," he wrote in the 1968 edition of the catalog.
Chris Murphy Do condoms represent a significant portion of beach litter? Are there environmentally friendly condoms? —Wendy M., Olympia, WA Condoms are often found discarded on beaches along with straws, bottles and other trash. About 900 condoms were found on Florida’s beaches during a three-hour litter collection campaign in 1996. That’s five condoms per minute. […]
I understand that there is a ban in place on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Where can I purchase a CFC-free refrigerator?
By some measures, Switzerland is the greenest nation in the industrialized world. Not only does it boast one of the densest rail systems, it also leads Europe by recycling 50 percent of all household waste. Annual garbage production is just 880 pounds per person—half the U.S. figure. These municipal recycling bins in Interlaken, Switzerland separate […]
A burly grizzly bear strode across a meadow in Yellowstone National Park last spring, barely noticed by grazing herds of elk and bison. The bear, weak from hibernation, was focused on procuring an easier meal, such as scavenged bison carcasses and the tiny white blossoms that speck the forest edges. A keystone species in several […]
As Terry McDonald, executive director of St. Vincent de Paul (SVdP) Society of Lane County, navigated the congested Oregon Interstate 5 traffic near Portland, he was taken aback by mountains of broken pop bottle green glass unceremoniously dumped by the roadside. Destined to end up as dangerous litter or landfill waste, the glass was what […]
