Why is it that we have so much trouble making the connection between runaway population growth and environmental degradation? It seems plain that the issues that matter most to us—biodiversity, urban sprawl, loss of rainforests and old-growth trees, air and water pollution—have their roots in the incredibly successful propagation of the human species. And yet […]
In October, World Population Will Reach Six Billion. Can the Earth Carry the Load?
Two Views Melanie Mitsue Okamoto, campaign organizer, Political Ecology Group: In the past decade, the anti-immigrant lobby, which includes groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Carrying Capacity Network, has jumped on the “green” bandwagon to invent a new form of scapegoating that targets immigrants as a cause of our environmental […]
Read Nothing About It From the viewpoint of the American press, last February’s Hague Forum on population, a follow-up to the landmark Cairo conference five years ago, was largely a stage set for Hillary Rodham Clinton to look senatorial. Very few U.S. media outlets, with the notable exception of CNN (Turner Broadcasting is also producing […]
The Worldwide Plant Crisis is Accelerating Janet Marinelli trekked more than 13 miles a day along the ocean beaches of Long Island in search of the wild amaranth, a plant everyone assumed had been extinct for 40 years until, out of the blue, news reports started coming in that the plant had reappeared in, of […]
An International Trade Imperils Wild Herbs Now that the vitamin aisle at your local drug store abounds with echinacea, goldenseal, ginseng and other supplements, have you ever wondered where your herbal helpers come from? Peering into the distance, Curley Youpee can see an answer in the pockmarks riddling the hillsides of his Fort Peck, Montana […]
Peter B. Kaplan/The National Audubon Society Collection/PR African Violet Location: Kenya and Tanzania Claim to Fame: Common, fuzzy-blooming houseplant. Problem: Saving the highly-threatened wild versions requires establishing protected forests and conserving them the Noah’s Ark way. That is, by taking a few to grow in protective gardens. Coral Plant Location: Chile Claim to Fame: The […]
Has Online Retail Spawned a New Orgy of Consumer Spending? Shopnow.com captures the lure of e-commerce in its motto, “The shopping is 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” Indeed, online revenues, which last year totaled $4.5 billion globally, are expected to jump to $14.8 billion by next January. Two years after that, according […]
Are We Threatening Our Intelligence with Chemical Pollution? The 101st Congress declared the 1990s the “Decade of the Brain” to focus attention on the most vulnerable of human organs. But after 10 years of intensive research focusing on chemical threats to mental development, have we learned anything? Yes. Although average IQ scores have continued to […]
In sizing up a prospective house, more and more homebuyers are asking themselves how the property rates on the green scale…
