Currents

Dr. Deborah Brosnan is a marine scientist who brims with passion for learning about and protecting the oceans. In recent years, she has also turned her considerable scientific expertise to helping people and ecosystems cope with the destruction wrought by natural disasters. Her work has taken her into typhoons, under erupting volcanoes, through a terrifying plane crash and at ground zero of the Asian tsunami. Her experiences in Southeast Asia led her to found the Tsunami Reef Action Fund, which is working to restore human and natural systems severely battered by Mother Nature’s fury.

Environmentalists were disappointed last week when a White House visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao yielded little if any substantive discussion about one of the world’s top hot button issues: energy use. After all, the U.S. remains the world’s top energy consumer, but China is coming on strong with its recent development push.

While the Chinese government has never been known for its environmental consideration, a new city springing up there on an island in the mouth of the Yangtze River may start to change all of that. Bulldozers have already broken ground on Chongming, where China is constructing an earth-friendly city from scratch catering to the overflowing masses from nearby Shanghai as well as those displaced by the massive and ongoing Three Gorges dam project.

Three of this year’s winners of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize (awarded April 24) are focused on combating global warming by saving the world’s fast-diminishing rainforests.

All the hype about New Zealand being clean and green: is it exaggerated? New Zealand is touted internationally as one of the most breathtaking places to visit and a conservation leader. But the truth, say the country’s environmental leaders,

Although traditional corn-based ethanol has a loyal constituency in farm states, support for bio-ethanol, also known as cellulosic ethanol, is growing.

Replacing dire warnings about fire and brimstone after death with a call for immediate action on global warming right here and now, 85 evangelical leaders proclaimed, "This is God’s world, and any damage that we do to God’s world is an offense against God himself." It was a jolt from President Bush’s own "base."

Pedal-powered “pedicabs” are pollution free and a positive alternative to regular taxicabs for short-distance urban travel, but they aren’t always welcomed with open arms.

Earth Day is upon us, and that means it’s time for celebration and reflection, as well as a lot of hard work. Activists in the vast, diverse confederacy that is the modern environmental movement are mobilizing campaigns, hosting vegetarian potlucks, planning neighborhood cleanups and meeting the public.