Kathyrn Alexander saw the green light when she read an article about Cultural Survival, the indigenous-rights group based in Boston. "I was truly inspired," she remembers. Alexander is president of Tropical Botanicals, a California company that produces such sexy-sounding products as "Passionflower Massage Oil" and "Babacu Nut Body Lotion."
We are not often exposed, in this country, to acts of principled self-denial on the part of those far less fortunate than ourselves. America is a country seemingly obsessed with rights, demands and redress. Greed is presumed god, or at least neutral, when accompanied by a relative lack of wealth. So while the poor are, by virtue of their state, free of any need to justify avarice, many of us make special pains to do just that. Accumulation pervades life in the developed world so completely that much can be determined about our worldview by how much and how gracefully we consume.
On a mild winter morning, Yellow Creek runs caramel brown behind larry and Sheila Wilson’s house, smelling of the earth, pungent and natural. The surface ripples over hidden rocks and breaks into tiiny white caps. From the porch it looks like a gentle wading creek, but as you cross the lawn you find that it is a powerful little river, full of muscle, racing ahead through this flat hollow to the next bend in the wooded mountains that have shaped five decades of Larry’s life. This is the heart of coal country. One small hill has laready been cut down soon. But for now the hollow seems at peace, slumbering in the brown shades of winter. The loud burbling of the creek blankets the yard. a great blue heron flies overhead. The damp air carries an acrid trace of coal smoke from a neighbor’s chimney.
The 25-foot boat darted toward the Exxon tanker under cover of night, stealthily taking water samples of the liquid being discharged. For a half year, the tiny boat had trailed tankers along New York’s Hudson River as they rinsed their tanks clean of sea water tainted with jet fuel–an illegal activity Exxon would live to regret. But back in 1983 few people knew that the Hudson River had recently acquired its very own watchdog: John Cronin, better known as the Riverkeeper.
Demographers define “mega-cities” as sprawling, crowded urban centers with populations topping 10 million. In 1995, 14 cities qualified as mega-cities; analysts predict that by 2015 there will be 21.
Environmentally-friendly school and office products have been available for decades from specialty suppliers, but in recent years many recycled kinds of papers, pens, pencils, ink toner cartridges, binders, folders and desk accessories have become ubiquitous in mainstream office supply stores.
Back in February 2000, in response to the realization that discarded autos accounted for a tenth of the hazardous waste spilling out of Europe”s landfills, the European Union (EU) decided to shift the burden of environmental responsibility squarely onto the carmakers themselves.
Seahorse populations around the world have been in decline for decades due to habitat loss, the home aquarium trade, and unintentional capture by fishermen seeking shrimp and other seafood. More recently, though, their popularity as an ingredient in non-synthetic impotence formulas has pushed these tiny creatures with the spinning tales to the brink of extinction.
Sewage treatment plants are required to abide by federal odor and nuisance laws devised to protect residents. Some plants build enclosures for the treatment tanks, thereby containing the smells.
When Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt visited the Great Falls Park in Virginia last year, he found no one at the entrance to take his fee. When he inquired, the superintendent said she was one of the only three employees on duty and the other two were on emergency calls.
