E‘s 2004 book Feeling the Heat: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Climate Change (Routledge), based on a special feature in the September/ October 2000 issue of the magazine, reported on many of the connections between intense storm damage and global warming now under discussion in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Colin Woodard described […]
Congressman Richard Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee, introduced legislation that would sharply curtail the power of the Endangered Species Act (see "Fall of the Wild," cover story, May/June 1999). Pombo has long been a vocal critic of the legislation. In his September 19 announcement of the bill, Pombo assailed current legislation for having […]
On May 26, federal court judge James Redden ruled, for the second time, that the federal salmon plan for the Columbia and Snake Rivers is unlawful (see "American Rivers," In Brief, July/ August 2000). In May 2003, Judge Redden had asked the Bush administration to rewrite the first plan. Redden takes issue with the National […]
According to a recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health, particulate pollution can be directly linked to increasing the risk of cardiovascular problems and major heart failure in diabetics. The study, led by Harvard professor of environmental epidemiology Joel Schwartz, was published last June in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association (see […]
If the contents of U.S. landfills (and litter along roadways) are any indication, the bottled water industry is booming (see "Message in a Bottle," cover story, September/October 2003). Every day, 30 million used water bottles are tossed away as more and more Americans avoid their taps in favor of handsomely packaged plastic bottles boasting "pure" and "natural" H2O. In 2004, only 15 percent of bottled water containers were recycled.
In the spring of 1984, Peter Wallerstein received a phone call about an adult whale and her calf struggling to free themselves from the cutting confines of a gill net. Many of his previous phone calls to the Los Angeles city authorities had gone unanswered, and Wallerstein, then director of the Sea Shepherd Society, decided it was time to take matters into his own hands.
More than 70 mayors and other local leaders from around the world have signed the Urban Environmental Accords, 21 ambitious—but non-binding—sustainability goals. They pledged specifically to work toward getting 10 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2012, extending public transit to within a quarter mile of all city residents by 2015, reducing greenhouse gases by 25 percent by 2030 and achieving zero municipal waste by 2040.
Before this spring, Yosemite visitors hopped out of their vehicles in a cloud of exhaust smoke and gazed up at the gossamer falls from the cracked asphalt, the smell of sequoias and the sound of cascading water barely discernible. That visitor experience has been relegated to park lore with the completion this spring of a new transit plan that includes reforestation of the old parking lot, a shuttle stop, and a fleet of 18 hybrid buses.
The scent of sage and the pounding hooves of abundant wild game are a memory to the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Shoshone Indians in Utah…
"What’s the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?" Thoreau once asked. His quote adorns the brochure for EcoVillage–a planned community coming to life in Ithaca, New York. At their forum last fall, 60 earthy people slogged through sodden paths and armpit-high brambles on the 176-acre site–recently purchased for $400,000–that many hope to someday call home. They drew smeary-inked circles and arrows on map handouts. They debated whether the site proposed for the village center would be better suited for a water tank, and whether to plant the asparagus patch over the proposed playing field. "The land will let us know what goes where," reassured architect Steve Blais, one of the many professionals donating their services to the nonprofit project.
