It Can Happen Here
Savage Outbreaks of Animal-Borne Diseases Raise Fears that the Next Epidemic Could be in the U.S.
On the Blue Frontier
Across America, Activists are Fighting to Save Our Living Oceans
An SOS for the Oceans
In Derek Hansen’s novel Sole Survivor, a band of plucky, environmentally minded New Zealanders triumph against a fleet of ruthless Japanese longline fishermen intent on strip-mining the seas. The book makes exciting reading, but in reality, those Japanese fishermen—and their counterparts in an international network that spans the globe—have the upper hand. Neither local law […]
Cars From Coconuts
DaimlerChrysler and Ford Launch Sustainability ProjectsThe northern Brazilian state of Par?, set in the largest contiguous tropical rainforest in the world, is four times the size of Germany but has a tiny fraction of that industrialized country’s economic activity. That’s why defenders of the rainforest say it’s important to build a sustainable economy in Brazil’s […]
Memphis Military Legacy
A Toxic Trail Leads to the Now-Closed Defense Depot The United States military produces nearly a ton of hazardous wastes every minute, an amount that surpasses even the biggest multinational corporations. More than 120 military sites have been placed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Superfund National Priority List. Locating toxin-laden military installations near many […]
A Meadowlands Oasis
Laurel Hill Offers Biodiversity in the Shadow of the New Jersey Turnpike With more than 600,000 drivers each day, the northern half of the New Jersey Turnpike is among the most widely traveled roads in America. For the most part, it’s not a pretty sight. The industrial wastelands, abandoned factories and former landfills that pass […]
Fair Winds in Denmark
Arriving in Copenhagen by sea, the first thing travelers see of Denmark is a row of 20 enormous wind turbines gently spinning above the waves nearly two miles from shore. Completed last December, the Middelgrunden Wind Farm is the world’s largest offshore wind power facility. Its wind machines, each with blades 100 feet long, together […]
Bait and Switch
Virginia Tries to Duck Responsibility for Protecting Horseshoe Crabs Horseshoe crabs—actually more related to spiders than crabs—have gotten along fine, without help from human beings, for 300 million years or so, paleontologists estimate, predating even the dinosaurs. But the twentieth century has been a rough one for the horseshoe crab. It began with their existence […]
Cleaner Cruises, Toxic Breast Milk and the Gift of a Tree
What is the environmental impact of cruise ships? —David Haviland, Ann Arbor, MI Chris Murphy Illustration For several million passengers each year, an ocean cruise can be the ultimate vacation. But according to the activist group Bluewater Network, "from 1993 to 1998, cruise ships were involved in 104 detected and confirmed cases of illegal discharges […]
Seeing Clearly at Lake Tahoe
Everyone at Lake Tahoe is hoping that history—or at least a very specific historical fact—will repeat itself. Tahoe—a 23-mile-long, 12-mile wide, nearly 1,600-foot-deep lake nestled in the Sierra Nevada—regained its lost clarity after most of the surrounding forests were clear cut in the 1800s and erosion was rampant. That’s particularly good news now, considering that […]