Currents

Wild Honeybees, Nature’s Pollinators, Are in Trouble, Victims of Manmade Pollution and Tiny, Destructive Mites.

Despite the fact that most Americans think the environment has gotten dramatically better in their lifetimes, the air in 31 states fails to meet federal health standards for smog. I’m breathing some of that bad air myself, since my county is one of the failures.

In Europe high-speed trains are the norm for travel around the continent. Yes, there are challenges to connect sprawling, suburbanized America to train transit and rebuild the system we once had, but with traffic congestion increasing 400 percent since 1985 it’s time we prioritized fast trains as a national goal. The average commuter spends five years stuck in traffic when he or she could be sitting back and enjoying the ride.

Last week police in southern Oregon arrested three Greenpeace activists who had chained themselves to a shipping container to block loggers from reaching an old-growth timber sale on federal land.

The same environmentalists and biologists who have cheered the comeback of the wolf to Yellowstone National Park are cringing at a Bush administration plan proposing to give state officials in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming the authority to move or shoot wolves that have wandered beyond park boundaries into zones where prey populations of grazing animals are diminishing. Whether or not wolves are playing any role in herds" low numbers, state officials — with the blessing of the Bush administration — are hungry to take out Canis lupus.

Last week’s Supreme Court ruling allowing Mexican trucks to enter U.S. roads has invoked the ire of clean air advocates. The Court ruled that under the auspices of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the U.S. had no right to exclude Mexican trucks — many of which are older and do not meet more stringent emissions standards — from plying American roads.

At a conference last week in Bonn, Germany, senior officials from 154 nations including the United States signed onto a communiqué committing to a substantial increase "with a sense of urgency" in the percentage of renewable sources in meeting global energy needs.

In response to Bush administration intentions to open up nearly 60 million acres of national forest land to extractive industries, a trade group representing 4,000 guiding and outdoor equipment companies has launched a campaign to educate consumers about the benefits of saving public land for recreational purposes.

As fuel prices skyrocket across the country, owners of vehicles at both ends of the fuel efficiency spectrum are making political statements simply by driving around town. On one extreme is GM’s Hummer H2, weighing in at over 6,000 pounds and guzzling gas at a rate of 10-13 miles per gallon. On the other are the compact Japanese hybrids by Toyota and Honda, which top out at a whopping 60 miles per gallon.