When the great naturalist Aldo Leopold first set eyes on the Colorado River delta in 1922, he saw what he called “a milk and honey wilderness” full of “a hundred green lagoons.” Leopold would find that landscape utterly changed today. The mighty Colorado no longer flows this far south; as Sandra Postel, director of the […]
The basic premise of socially responsible investing is simple: If money makes the world go "round, greener, more humane investments can improve the way it spins. Yet before hailing a new era of green capitalism, it’s also important to understand some of its limitations.
Though our elected representatives profess to vote their consciences, guided by their constituents’ interests, other, unseen forces exert powerful pressure. No matter what the people want, when it costs $500,000 to run a successful campaign for the House of Representatives, and $20 million to win a presidential primary, cash contributors will have the upper hand.
For years, solar technology has been a promising but expensive alternative. Now, a new federal program may finally get solar off the ground—and onto the roof.
In one corner of the United States, mountain goats traipse across the fragile alpine flowers that speckle the snowline of Washington’s craggy Olympic Mountains. They look beautiful, but the goats don’t belong there. Seattle newspaperman E.B. Webster and his mountaineer club 80 years ago pushed to introduce the shaggy-bearded animals to the majestic mountains to […]
Maybe it’s our growing appetite for spicy ethnic and foreign cuisines, or maybe it’s just that our palates thrill to the zip added by seasoning anything thrown on the grill. Whatever the reason, Americans are clearly running hot for spices. Last year, we consumed close to a billion pounds of the stuff, almost four pounds […]
Taos is More Than Great Skiing It was nearly 50 years ago that Swiss-born Ernie Blake flew over the Taos mountains in his Cessna 170, and noted that it offered skiing comparable to his native land. The Taos Ski Valley resort, now named as one of the top 10 destinations in North America by Skiing […]
The Ecotourism Society Sets the Standards.
Urban Community Gardens Fight to Save Their Space In the heart of downtown Manhattan, peeking out from between towering brick high-rises, is a little green oasis called the Liz Christy Garden. Inside, urban sojourners can watch fish and turtles glide beneath the surface of a pond. For others, the garden offers a rare opportunity to […]
Are We Ignoring the Early Warning Signs of Global Warming? Pasqual Gorriz / AP Wide World Photos Could bad weather be more than bad luck? Were the droughts, disease outbreaks, wildfires and floods brought on by the great El Ni?o weather event of 1997-98 more than just the chance result of our variable global climate? […]
