Currents

It seems patently unfair that Europeans are probably doing more than any people on Earth to reduce global warming emissions, and yet Europe is in the vanguard of feeling the heat. A report released by the European Environment Agency (EEA) August 18 said that the continent is warming more rapidly than the rest of the world, with the likely results heat waves (like the scorcher in France that killed 15,000 people last summer), floods and the loss of three quarters of the Swiss Alps’ glaciers by 2050.

In a nod to conservation-minded voters, Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry has proposed a 10-year, $30 billion plan to move the U.S. closer to energy independence. The linchpin of Kerry’s ambitious plan would be providing financial incentives to manufacturers and consumers to increase the energy efficiency of the nation’s automotive fleet. The plan also calls for the nation to derive 20 percent of its power from renewable sources—including solar, wind, ethanol and biodiesel—by 2020.

An international group comprised of the world’s leading atmospheric scientists has found that airborne industrial pollution from Asia is lingering high over New England and the Atlantic Ocean this summer, raising concerns that improved American air quality in recent years may be jeopardized by the effects of increasing industrialization and weak regulation abroad.

The singer-actress Eartha Kitt (TV"s Catwoman) was thankful for the solid construction of her Range Rover after it flipped over in Westport, Connecticut in early August. "Thank God for that car," she said. "I don’t think I’ll ever drive another."

Twenty years ago, much of the public land around the San Pedro River in southeastern Arizona resembled the barren and desolate landscape found in a Sub-Saharan desert. For years, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management had granted grazing permits to ranchers for thousands of acres of fragile land along the San Pedro.

This past week the Green Party selected California lawyer David Cobb as its nominee for the upcoming Presidential election, snubbing 2000 party nominee Ralph Nader, who is again running for the White House. While Nader, who many Democrats considered a spoiler in 2000 for taking crucial votes away from Al Gore, would provide greater name recognition for the Greens, Cobb received a majority of the half-million-member party’s delegates.

In yet another case of habitat destruction endangering an already protected wildlife species, Australia’s koala bears are facing extinction unless concerned citizens and government officials can stem the tide of urbanization sweeping across the country’s eastern seaboard.

Forty-eight American Nobel Science Prize winners have endorsed John Kerry’s bid for the White House, citing their hope that the Democratic challenger can help the U.S. regain its focus on scientific research and technological development.

Last week, frozen genetic tissue samples from an Arabian oryx, a spotted sea horse and a British field cricket were among the first specimens to be included in a unique project aimed at storing and preserving genetic material from 10,000 or so endangered species from around the globe.

On a beach in North Carolina, my cousin Andy pointed up to the night sky and said, "Look, there’s the Big Dipper!" My two girls, ages seven and 10, followed his hand and, after some squinting and trying really hard, were able to see that those dim beacons formed a pattern, one they’d seen in pictures.