Bitter Sweets
The sugar industry has been devastating the Everglades for years.
Cover Story
Food Fight: Genetic Engineering vs. Organics
How tens of millions of consumers spend their money is akin to casting a vote between competing and ascending forms of agriculture: genetically modified foods versus organics. Both expanding industries say their techniques are the best and most sensible way to feed the world’s growing population. Both maintain they’re sustainable forms of agriculture and lighter on the environment than conventional better-living-through-chemistry agribusiness.
Taking the Natural Path
In 2002, the International Year of Ecotourism, Will We Set New Standards for Green Travel?
On the Blue Frontier
Across America, Activists are Fighting to Save Our Living Oceans
Business Savvy
Making Room on the Shelves for a New Generation of Greener Goods
Uprooted
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 […]
Now We Are Six
In October, World Population Will Reach Six Billion. Can the Earth Carry the Load?
Toxic Targets
Polluters That Dump on Communities of Color Are Finally Being Brought to Justice
Mad Cows and the Colonies
In 1985, a previously healthy Holstein dairy cow in England became edgy and uncoordinated. It had difficulty standing and walking, and became aggressive and unpredictable. Death came quickly, and an examination revealed a startling fact: Its brain was riddled with holes, like a sponge. The cow’s condition was later given a name: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or BSE. "Mad cow disease" had arrived.
Vacuuming the Sea
At sea 200 miles southwest of Iceland last summer, the crew of a super-trawler big enough to contain a dozen Boeing 747 jumbo jets unloaded a staggering 50 tons of oceanic redfish into flash-freezers down below, as the Icelandic ship’s captain began maneuvering against nearby Russian and Japanese vessels for the next set. Emotions were running high, as there was a lot at stake. Each ship was trawling nets with opening circumferences of almost two miles; that’s the equivalent of 10 New York City blocks wide by two Empire State Buildings high. Soon the Russian boat steamed over the Icelander’s net, and the Japanese trawler ripped loose the Russian’s lines.