The "Magna Carta" of Environmental Protection Faces an Uncertain Future When Utah Governor Mike Leavitt proposed constructing a 120-mile freeway running north and south through his state, developers eagerly waited to begin digging and paving. But a few significant details bogged down their plans. As a coalition of environmental groups called Utahns for Better Transportation […]
High-Tech Plans to Generate Undersea Electricity Say anything, but don’t accuse Jared Blumenfeld of thinking small. The director of San Francisco’s Department of the Environment has been staring at the Golden Gate Bridge a lot lately, wondering how the picture-postcard scene would look if he tucked a huge electric power plant beneath it. If done […]
The Bushmeat Crisis is Emptying Africa’s Forests Deep in the heart of the Congo River Basin, the tropical forest is lush and full of life. Immense Sapelli and Okoumé trees tower over the forest floor, and small antelopes called duikers plunge through the undergrowth while the calls of bonobos and sooty mangabeys sound from the […]
The High-Tech Industry is Poisonous to Low-Wage Immigrant Workers In February 2000, Garrett Brown of California’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration (Cal-OSHA) found that a high-tech plant in Fremont, California was poisoning its workers with arsenic. Brown learned that American Xtal Technology (AXT), while filling semiconductor contracts for the Department of Defense and the National […]
Nigeria’s Coastline is Besieged by Global Warming New research is sounding the alarm, predicting that climate-related sea level rise is likely to put 80 percent of Nigeria’s coastline at risk of being swept away by the surging waves of the Atlantic Ocean. In a research study entitled, "Perception and Reality: Assessing Priorities for Sustainable Development […]
Middlebury College Recycles Paper—and Its Old Buildings "I had my first college class in that room right there," says Chad Malone, pointing to a ground-floor chamber stripped to a concrete shell and filled with rubble. "Chem 104. This was a terrible building. Cold, cold." Very few people get to trash their old college classrooms (at […]
Henry SiJohn, square-faced and bespectacled, peered across the broad waters of Lake Coeur d’Alene, the spiritual center of his Coeur d’Alene tribe. The water shimmered a deep blue, making for a pretty backdrop for the numerous weddings held at a posh neighboring golf resort. Once promoted for national park status, the lake has stoked the […]
There’s no doubt that wind and solar are clean, efficient and renewable sources of energy, but not everyone welcomes an alternative power project in their backyard. A proposed 170-turbine wind park off the southern coast of Massachusetts has generated considerable heat, but no power yet. The planned park on Horseshoe Shoals in Nantucket Sound has […]
How Clean is Your Bottled Water? There’s no question about it, bottled water has become a hot commodity. Americans pay $4 billion dollars a year for the privilege of drinking it. Sales of bottled water have grown nine-fold in the past 20 years, and tripled in the last 10, making it the fastest-growing segment of […]
The Society of Environmental Journalists Plays an Important–and Controversial–Role The first time Deborah Schoch saw industrial-grade DDT it was a chunk the size of a walnut. Schoch was working for the Los Angeles Times, covering the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to survey for contamination of a lower-middle-class neighborhood near two Superfund sites. Environmental writer Barry […]
