Finnish Environmentalists Work to Stop Relentless Old-Growth Logging By appearance and reputation, Finland is resplendent in its verdant natural beauty. A flat country with expansive marine clay plains, low plateaus and small hills, fully 76 percent of the nation is covered by dense forest and woodland areas. More than 180,000 sparkling lakes and nearly as […]
Growing a Green Business
If you are bothered by the smell of trace amounts of chlorine in your tap water, expose it in a clear, uncovered bottle to the sun’s rays for an hour and the smell will dissipate.
How to Avoid Fuming Fibers, Deceptive Stickers and Alien Mussels What are the toxic dangers of the carpet-cleaning chemical ethylene glycol monobutyl ether? —Roger Schatz, Chicago, IL Ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, also known as 2-butoxyethanol, is the most toxic of the glycol ethers. It is a clear, syrupy liquid with a mild, rancid odor that […]
Explorations of Gravel Mining, the Antarctic Shelf and "Natural" Cleansers What are the environmental impacts of gravel extraction? Kristina Hayward Berkshire, UK Gravel extraction, often in stream beds, is big business in the United States and elsewhere, and there's a definite environmental cost. Gravel is used to help build patios, parking lots, roads and building […]
Some People Don’t Have ‘The Complexion for Protection’ When, in 1979, Dr. Robert Bullard wrote a study called Solid Waste Sites and the Black Houston Community, nobody had heard of environmental racism (see the special report in this issue). It would be three more years before anyone used that phrase, but Dr. Bullard had plainly […]
Dissection’s Deadly Toll Hits Frogs Hardest For most high school students, dissecting a formaldehyde-soaked frog is an educational rite of passage. But the practice has decimated the population of frogs and other wild-caught animals, and more and more kids are refusing to do it. “I don’t think it’s right to kill animals,” says Amanda Swann, […]
An Exercise in Democracy Pits Conservation Against Animal Rights On the parched outskirts of Hwange National Park in western Zimbabwe, Mabale villagers were screaming epithets, flailing arms and legs, and beating drums and pots, creating an unearthly din. This wasn’t some ritualistic African dance—the villagers were trying to intimidate a herd of elephants. The same […]
A "Green" Gas Additive May be Causing More Problems Than It’s Solving When Freda and Jim Kubas bought their Glenville, California home, they thought they would be spending the rest of their lives there. In 1993, they began using their private well and noticed a turpentine-like odor and peculiar taste, so they installed a $4,000-water […]
The Sierra Club Votes Down an Immigration Initiative There are few issues more politically charged than immigration policy, so it’s hardly surprising that voices were raised and names were called when the Sierra Club debated the subject last spring. At issue was a ballot initiative proposed by an insurgent group within the club, Sierrans for […]
