In the early 1990s, I lived in Lagos, Nigeria. It is an intensely crowded city, and more people live on the street or in cardboard huts than in apartments or homes. Traffic is gridlocked 24-7. Vendors squat alongside every roadway selling bananas and rice, large grilled rodents euphemistically called "bushmeat," and tiny packets of Chiclets gum.
Cows live happy, contented lives until, full of years, they go to humane slaughter. The beef, free of all contaminants, is delivered to restaurants around the world, where skilled chefs convert it into a wide variety of delicious, nutritious, additive-free heart-healthy meals. There are no losers in the human-restaurant-agribusiness-bovine alliance.
The nonprofit research and advocacy organization Environmental Defense announced last week that it is teaming up with Yahoo! Autos to provide car buyers with easy-to-access information on how various new car and truck models stack up in terms of environmental performance and fuel efficiency.
A report released by Greenpeace highlights the problem of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans.
In what is shaping up to be one of the most important Congressional election cycles of the last decade, the nonprofit League of Conservation Voters (LCV) is campaigning hard to convince voters across the country to dump politicians that do not support various pro-environmental initiatives.
According to a report recently issued by the international environmental nonprofit World Wildlife Fund (WWF), humanity’s demands are exceeding the planet’s capacity to sustain us. The group predicts the collapse of large-scale ecosystems around the world within a few decades if human consumption is not put in check.
In 2003, the Do Not Call Registry opened and has received more than 125 million telephone numbers from people who do not want their contact information sold to telemarketers. Three years later, Americans are still waiting for a simple, companion registry in order to reduce the quantity of unwanted junk mail from direct mailers.
With a population expected to swell by two million in 25 years, the Washington, DC metro region is under tremendous pressure. Already facing a daily onslaught of cars, the region is girding for a huge increase in traffic. In response, two of the oldest DC suburbs, Silver Spring, Maryland and Arlington, Virginia, are trying to find an antidote to sprawl—or perhaps simply to recreate an older sense of neighborhood.
Islands often serve an important role in protecting and preserving species because of their isolation and lack of predators. But some species aren’t suited to the offshore ecosystem, and some countries don’t have the islands to devote to conservation efforts. New Zealand has decided to import the benefits of offshore island habitats inland by creating “mainland islands,” typically surrounded by large predator-resistant fences. Despite early success, the effort is meeting some skepticism and resistance.
The residents of the remote, rural eco-village of Las Gaviotas, Colombia (population around 200) and their international allies are marketing their pure water to Americans through a grassroots network of mostly volunteers. Despite the cross-continental transportation and plastic bottles required, they expect the project not only to have a neutral or negative "footprint," but also to support the growth and duplication of this model community and the ambitious reforestation project that supports it.
