Rosalind Wallace and Gretchen Roffler were both lucky and smart when they encountered a mountain lion in the remote reaches of Olympic National Park last summer. The two park employees, who were doing spotted owl surveys at the time, did everything right. They stayed upright, always above the lion. They stood their ground and didn’t even think about running. They looked the cat directly in the eyes. Most important, they made sure not to act like prey.
Legend has it that under the hills around Winchester, England’s ancient capital lies a sleeping dragon. Only when the tribes of Britain gather once again upon it’s head at Twyford Down would the dragon awake to protect the land and banish tyranny from the shores.
If ever there was an environmentalist perfectly comfortable with technology, it is Stewart Brand, the founding editor of the legendary Whole Earth Catalog and later, The Whole Earth Review. Sympathetic with the plight of the plundered Earth since studying biology at Stanford University in the late ’50s, Brand has always been an enthusiastic proponent of putting tools into the hands of worthy users. Anyone who’s gotten their hands on those catalogs–whether they’re from the ’60s or the ’90s–knows Brand believes wholeheartedly that putting the right tools in the right hands can change the world for the better. "We are as Gods and might as well get good at it," he wrote in the 1968 edition of the catalog.
By some measures, Switzerland is the greenest nation in the industrialized world. Not only does it boast one of the densest rail systems, it also leads Europe by recycling 50 percent of all household waste. Annual garbage production is just 880 pounds per person—half the U.S. figure. These municipal recycling bins in Interlaken, Switzerland separate […]
A burly grizzly bear strode across a meadow in Yellowstone National Park last spring, barely noticed by grazing herds of elk and bison. The bear, weak from hibernation, was focused on procuring an easier meal, such as scavenged bison carcasses and the tiny white blossoms that speck the forest edges. A keystone species in several […]
As Terry McDonald, executive director of St. Vincent de Paul (SVdP) Society of Lane County, navigated the congested Oregon Interstate 5 traffic near Portland, he was taken aback by mountains of broken pop bottle green glass unceremoniously dumped by the roadside. Destined to end up as dangerous litter or landfill waste, the glass was what […]
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 […]
Green Audits Reveal the Environmental Bottom Line, By Pamela J. Gordon
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 […]
