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According to a new report by a trio of environmental groups, expanding urban sprawl is putting a third of America’s endangered species at risk of extinction within the next two decades as a result of habitat loss.

In October I visited Pittsburgh to attend the annual Society of Environmental Journalists conference, and spent an afternoon touring one of the city’s crown jewels: Washington’s Landing, formerly Herr’s Island.

According to Friends of the Earth, the amount of devastation from late December’s Indian Ocean tsunami was significantly lower in those coastal areas protected by natural barriers such as mangrove forests and coral reefs.

Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton announced last week that state wildlife agencies in Idaho and Montana have been approved to take over management of gray wolf populations in their states from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In its first public response to recommendations it requested from a panel of marine experts, the Bush administration last week announced the creation of a Committee on Ocean Policy designed to head off growing problems with marine ecosystems. The committee will spearhead federal efforts to limit overfishing, convert warships to research vessels and improve monitoring of ocean conditions in U.S. coastal areas.

In an effort to reduce not only visitation but also snowmobile traffic during the fragile winter season, Yellowstone National Park is now restricting access between December 15 and April 22 to those traveling with commercial guiding services (who in turn must apply for limited permits). The 44 lucky visitors who got in on the first day of the new season reported unprecedented peace and quiet in one of America’s most popular national parks.

Consider this basic and sobering group of facts: In the 100 years and change since we dug that first well, the human race has used half of all the oil on the planet. Author Michael C. Ruppert points out that this oil took literally millions of years to produce, and is the result of climactic conditions that have existed on a grand scale at only one time in the Earth’s 4.5 billion-year history.

As part of the most comprehensive study on worldwide avian biodiversity to date, researchers from Stanford University predict that within a century, 10 percent of bird species in the world will be extinct, with an additional 15 percent endangered.

After serving little more than a year at the helm of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), former three-term Utah governor Mike Leavitt is getting a promotion to head up the Bush administration’s Department of Health and Human Services. Leavitt is known for towing the Republican party line, and is expected to be easily confirmed to replace outgoing HHS secretary Tommy Thompson.

I was relieved to discover last week that, even though the air that I breathe has just been deemed unhealthy by the federal government, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is hard at work making things better.