Computer waste can be a hazardous addition to garbage dumps, spreading lead, mercury, chromium and other compounds into the ground. While it may seem obvious that recycling is necessary to reduce the risk of possible pollutants, it remains relatively difficult for consumers to dispose of their old computers easily and cheaply. Now however, Dell has begun to offer a free pickup recycling service to customers buying a new PC.
If you’re pregnant and living in one of our many cities with unacceptable air quality, consider this: A study released last June by the Columbia University Center for Children’s Environmental Health demonstrates that developing fetuses are more susceptible to DNA damage caused by combustion-related pollutants than their mothers are, despite protection by the placenta.
In a story that got little play outside the capital city of Hartford last July, Anne Rapkin, a former chief legal counsel for the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), quietly settled a discrimination lawsuit against the state. Environmental shenanigans are nothing new in Connecticut.
Belize’s government is dead-set on building a dam on the upper Macal River, smack in the heart of the Cayo region, a central tourist draw. The $30 million Chalillo dam will flood 2,800 acres of tropical forest that is home to jaguars, ocelots, tapirs and the country’s only known flock of the rare and colorful scarlet macaw.
For years the killer stalked Detroit and its suburbs undetected. Now it has unleashed an epidemic that will kill millions. The killer is an insect, the emerald ash borer, and the victims are ash trees. "The emerald ash borer is one of the most challenging and difficult plant pests that any state has ever had to deal with," says Sara Linsmeier-Wurfel of the Michigan Department of Agriculture.
The nine staff members of Eugene, Oregon-based Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (E-LAW) have a disproportionate impact around the world. Since its founding in 1989 by grassroots lawyers from 10 countries, the organization has grown into a network connecting 300 lawyers and scientists in 60 countries.
Surviving in scattered areas around California, the red-legged frog was declared threatened in 1996 under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). The resulting effort produced the second-largest critical habitat area ever mapped—4.1 million acres sprawling over the state’s Central Valley and Sierra Nevada foothills—and since then, the frog has transformed from a treasured icon of Gold Rush California into a symbol of the ongoing fight over federal species protection.
A suspension bridge sways 52 feet above a forested ravine. Students sprawl face down on its metal grating, fear changing to awe as they observe the verdant scene below. At a new school called IslandWood near Seattle, Washington, kids are being immersed in nature, then challenged to be stewards of their surroundings.
Would you be smiling if you were riding in a jury-rigged truck that had an emergency evacuation button on the left and a giant and a tank of highly flammable hydrogen fuel behind the seat? It was par for the course at the FutureTruck Competition, hosted by Ford Motor Company and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
In 1989, at a pub called the Slug and Lettuce in Northern London, Edwin Datschefski was sitting with several of his green design colleagues when he noticed an enviro-minded acquaintance at a nearby table. As it turned out, the friend was sitting with a few of his eco-conscious mates, so they pulled some tables together. And so a movement was born.
