Driven by the disastrous effect two-stroke engines were having on the environment, the Bluewater Network was created in 1996 as a project of the Earth Island Institute. Bluewater Network, now part of Friends of the Earth, focuses on the negative effects of transportation on air and water quality.
Veggie "biodiesel" buses are cool with touring bands these days, and sometimes the music also includes a lecture on the benefits of this low-emission fuel. Top players with biodiesel bus conversions include Neil Young, Dave Matthews and Jack Johnson.
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.
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.
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…
When Alaska governor Walter J. Hinkel announced last November that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) would resume the airborne hunting of wolves, killing up to 400 wolves in Alaska during 1993, the public outcry was loud and swift, and the proposed hunt was halted in its tracks.
