OnEarth back issues from September 2007:
I had a feeling you might ask.(editor's letter)
Sep 22, 2007; ... YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED THAT THE MAGAZINE YOU'RE HOLDING HAS A LITTLE more heft to it. That's because, for the first time, we are accepting advertisements. Our publisher, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), has generously footed the bill for this magazine for nearly 30 years. But ...
Seashells by the seashore.(view from NRDC)(effects of carbon dioxide)
Sep 22, 2007; ... IN THE MIDST OF THE JULY HEAT, I FOUND MYSELF ENJOYING A quintessential summer experience: strolling along a Cape Cod beach looking for seashells. It reminded me of my childhood summers. Next to swimming in the ocean, my favorite activity was collecting shells. Each fall I returned home ...
NRDC in the news.(view from NRDC)(Natural Resources Defense Council)(Quotation)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007 ... <Pre> "'IT'S NOTHING LESS THAN embarrassing that three of the world's biggest oil companies are calling for tougher measures than the White House.'" --David Doniger of NRDC's climate center, as quoted in "Perspectives: Quotes in the News," Newsweek, June 11, 2007 "'THEY ARE A ...
We're consumed.(letters)(consumption exceeds resources)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007; ... I CRINGE WHEN WELL-MEANING EFFORTS TO make progress toward sustainable consumption start with extreme, wholly unsustainable practices like Wendee Holtcamp's in "My 30 Days of Consumer Celibacy" (Summer 2007). Since the late 1960s, environmental economists have argued that the fundamental ...
Pushy wind.(letters)(industrial wind turbines)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007; ... I live in a small town about 100 miles from Lowville, which Joseph D'Agnese visited in "Falling in Love With Wind" [Summer 2007]. There are problems with the kind of industrial wind farm he wrote about. For example, landowners who are considering "hosting" a turbine on their property often ...
Bring on the sun.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
Sep 22, 2007; ... If every house in North America put solar panels on the roof, we could produce five times the electrical energy we currently consume. No need for giant wind turbines, or big coal plants, or new transmission lines. The ...
Our children's genes.(letters)(environmental health)(Letter to the editor)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007; ... Laura Wright's article on the complex interplay between our genes and the environment in the development of human disease ("Looking Deep, Deep Into Your Genes," Summer 2007) hits the nail on the head. Research efforts have not kept up with our changing needs as we struggle to adapt to our ...
Calling al gore.(letters)(ocean protection)(Letter to the editor)
Sep 22, 2007; ... In Claudia Dreifus's interview with marine biologist Jane Lubchenco ("Troubled Waters," Summer 2007), the question arises as to whether the oceans need a spokesperson who can attract as much attention as Al Gore did for global warming. Today's oceans are not what ...
Showing the Birds.(Poem)
Sep 22, 2007; ... <Pre> Look, children, here is the shy, flightless dodo; the many-colored pigeon named the passenger, the great auk, the esquimo curlew, the woodpecker called the Lord ...
How to save a monkey: in the tropical forests of Colombia, a new breed of "conservation entrepreneurs" are using education and economics to protect an endangered primate.(Frontlines)
Sep 22, 2007; ... ANNE SAVAGE FIRST BECAME ENTRANCED WITH THE RARE COTTONTOP tamarin in the 1980s as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, where she studied the reproductive biology of the squirrel-size primate in captivity. Her fascination with the monkey eventually brought her to the dry ...
A nasty gas attack.(Frontlines)(methane from cows)
Sep 22, 2007; ... LET'S DISPOSE OF ONE misconception right away: Cows expel methane from the mouth, not from, ahem ... the other end. The average dairy cow belches or exhales between 30 and 130 gallons of methane each day as its forestomachs break down a diet of grasses heavy in tough, cellulosic fibers ....
Sniffing the air.(Frontlines)(China; pollution control; human nose)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007 ... IN THE BOOMING CHINESE CITY OF GUANGZHOU, THE human nose is the newest pollution-control device. The city's Panyu environmental station has hired 11 citizens ...
Ivory merchant.(Frontlines)(eBay; social responsibility)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007; ... SOME RECENT LISTINGS ON eBay, chosen at random: elephant ivory bangles originally bought in Senegal, a blue whale figurine carved from Alaskan walrus ivory, a set of ivory scrimshaw piano keys. The Internet is now a handy tool for poachers and dealers to circumvent restrictions on the ...
Our weather man: meet the physician whose job is to protect the health of our nation against the onslaught of global warming. So what exactly is he doing about it?(Q & A)(Centers for Disease Control's Howard Frumkin)(Interview)
Sep 22, 2007; ... FROM RADICAL ROOTS IN COMmunity politics, Howard Frumkin has risen to high office. In 1982, as a newly minted doctor specializing in occupational health, he trolled the union halls of Philadelphia, instructing listeners on ways to protect themselves from workplace hazards. His mission ...
Come back, Sir Richard.(Frontlines)(Virgin Atlantic Airways' Sir Richard Branson; Virgin Records and the Spice Girls)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007 ... SIR RICHARD BRANSON HAS A NET WORTH OF $2.8 BILLION, which ties him with Steven Spielberg as the world's 245th wealthiest person. The foundation of his empire was Virgin Records, which he sold to EMI Thorn in 1992 in order to focus his attention on Virgin Atlantic Airways. He's known as an ...
Who you gonna call? An immigrant family from Central America shows the city of San Francisco how to clean up its infestations with creative thinking, not just chemicals.(Frontlines)(pest control company, Pestec; Agurto family)
Sep 22, 2007; ... USING A STETHOSCOPE IN A HOSPITAL IS NOT SUCH A STRANGE THING TO DO, unless, of course, you're an exterminator, which Luis Agurto is. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Agurto, who owns the San Francisco-based pest control company Pestec, stands on a ladder and presses his ...
Wilderness be dammed.(Frontlines)(sacrificing environmental preservation; carbon emission reduction; building of dams)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007 ... OUR FALL 2006 COVER STORY, "Patagonia Under Siege," looked at plans to dam the two biggest rivers in southern Chile. Together the Spanish utility Endesa and the Chilean energy company Colbun want to invest $4 billion in four colossal dams that would supply Chile with 2,400 megawatts of ...
Where the gas is always greener.(Frontlines)(Helios House; gas station)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007 ... "A LITTLE BETTER": THAT'S BP'S SLOGAN FOR HELIOS HOUSE, ITS NEW ECO-FRIENDLY GAS STATION in Los Angeles. "When I first heard of it I was intrigued but also skeptical," says photographer Steve Labadessa--intrigued by BP's use of solar panels, recycled glass, and recyclable ...
Prince of wax.(Frontlines)(Madame Tussauds; wax figure of Prince Charles)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007 ... THESE ARE EXCITING TIMES at Madame Tussauds in London: first a new figure of Justin Timberlake (known as SexyWax), and then another of HRH Prince Charles. Think of this one as EcoWax. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Strictly speaking, the statue isn't a replacement, but a ...
And on your left, a grass-fed cow ...(living green)(dairy farm)
Sep 22, 2007; ... Bobolink Dairy is about 50 miles northwest of New York City in rural Vernon, New Jersey. Owned by Jonathan and Nina White, it produces artisanal grass-fed cheese and wood-fired bread, plus whey-fed pork and suckled veal--terms of art that make foodies drool. The Whites sell their products ...
Our silver-coated future: nanotechnology, fast becoming a three-trillion-dollar industry, is about to revolutionize our world. Unfortunately, hardly anyone is stopping to ask whether it's safe.
Sep 22, 2007; ... FOR AN industry that trades in the very, very small, projections about the potential scope of nanotechnology are gigantic. Estimates are that the industry will grow at a staggering pace in its first decade, reaching close to $3 trillion globally by 2014. The National Nanotechnology ...
Babe in the woods: a teenager--and her mom--explore what it really means to be good stewards of the earth.(Personal account)
Sep 22, 2007; ... THE MOM By sophomore year, my daughter Wendy was fed up with the private high school she attended in New York City. While I was away on a trip that fall, my husband okayed her plan to apply to something called Maine Coast Semester, a boarding school with an environmentally based curriculum ...
Canada's Highway to hell: the world's last (and dirtiest) oil boom is under way in the bore forests of Alberta. It's destroying a wilderness the size of Florida.
Sep 22, 2007; ... EVERY DAY approximately 50 new fortune seekers travel north on Canada's Highway 63 to the tar sands of Alberta, to join what may be the world's last great oil rush. The two-lane all-weather highway starts about 100 miles north of the provincial capital, Edmonton, and ends at Fort McMurray, ...
In search of a happy ending: in his new documentary, the 11th Hour, Leonardo DiCaprio invites a group of experts to discuss the precarious state of the earth. We asked a few of them to sit down with Elizabeth Kolbert and offer solutions.(Interview)
Sep 22, 2007; ... Inspired by The 11th Hour, we brought a panel of leading scientists and activists to New York City to tell us how we might heal the planet. The participants were urged to move beyond bleak diagnoses, to offer concrete proposals for a sustainable future. The conversation--often ...
Atomic idyll: global warming has given nuclear power new appeal. But is the cost too great?(Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy)(Book review)
Sep 22, 2007; ... POWER TO SAVE THE WORLD The Truth About Nuclear Energy BY GWYNETH CRAVENS Alfred A. Knopf. 464 pp., $27.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] GLOBAL WARMING IS THE BIGGEST THING HUMANS HAVE EVER DONE, and one of only two civilization-scale ...
Straw Dogs.(book)(Book review)
Sep 22, 2007; ... STRAW DOGS Thoughts on Humans And Other Animals BY JOHN GRAY Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 247 pp., $15 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] GIVEN THAT YOU'RE READING this magazine, you must be a right-thinking person. You're for liberty, equality, ...
The World Without Us.(book)(Book review)
Sep 22, 2007; ... THE WORLD WITHOUT US BY ALAN WEISMAN St. Martin's, 332 pp., $24.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IMAGINE AN EARTH WITHOUT humans. The how or why doesn't matter--just poof. We die from disease or simply wink out. The premise of science writer Alan ...
Storm Chaser.(book)(Brief article)(Book review)
Sep 22, 2007 ... Storm Chaser BY JIM REED, Harry N. Abrams $35 INSPIRED BY THE LIKES OF H. G. WELLS, JULES VERNE, AND A Christmastime windfall during his ninth year that included all the provisions a budding storm chaser might need in a tornado shelter--flashlight, camera, diary, ...
Letting the Grass Grow Under Your Feet.(Poem)
Sep 22, 2007; ... <Pre> It would rather not but of course it will. If you've tried standing on it long enough, those blades will insist on a way out from under and up at last into the light. You don't have to let it do that because it will. No matter how stubbornly or heavily you bear down, ...
Conquering our invisible energy demons: renovating old buildings can help curb global warming--big time--and put money back in owners' pockets.(DISPATCHES)
Sep 22, 2007; ... WHERE ARE YOU RIGHT NOW? Probably inside. And whether you're in an office, a towering apartment complex, a hospital, or your own house, the structure surrounding you is part of something very big: global warming. The energy used to power the buildings in which we live, work, and play is ...
L.A. to poor: take a hike.(DISPATCHES)(Los Angeles)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007; ... EACH DAY, SOME 500,000 LOS ANGELES RESIDENTS CLIMB aboard city buses to get to work, to school, or to the hospital; the median household income of those riders is just $12,000 a year. Over the next several years, bus fares are due to increase considerably, and the popular one-day pass will ...
A community's health in black and white.(DISPATCHES)(environmental justice; Dickson County, Tennessee)
Sep 22, 2007; ... FIVE YEARS AGO, SHEILA HOLT-Orsted's father discovered he had prostate cancer. Then she found out that she had cancer, and her neighbor had it too. In fact, most of her street in rural Dickson County, Tennessee--a quiet enclave of black families, many of whose forebears were freed ...
Saving an undiscovered sea world.(DISPATCHES)(bottom-trawling)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007; ... DEEP BENEATH THE SURFACE, vast communities of alien sea life make their home on underwater mountain ranges, or seamounts, most of which are completely unknown to science. In the South Pacific, orange roughy--an ancient-looking fish that suffers the great misfortune of tasting good to ...
Water returns to sacred Hopi springs.(DISPATCHES)(case of Peabody Energy)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007; ... IN THE LATE 1960S, PEABODY ENERGY, AN INTERNATIONAL COAL MINING COMPANY, ENTERED into an agreement with the Hopi and Navajo tribes of Arizona's Black Mesa to begin what would become the nation's largest strip mining operation. Over the ensuing decades, Peabody would do more than mine coal ...
NRDC at work.(DISPATCHES)
Sep 22, 2007 ... NRDC experts tackle many of the same issues covered in OnEarth by independent journalists. Here's a quick peek behind the headlines. Nanotechnology IN THIS ISSUE'S COVER story, Robin Marantz Henig ("Our Silver-Coated Future," p. 22) highlights many products that ...
In defense of Clean Air.(DISPATCHES)(Natural Resource Defense Council; Environmental Protection Agency; Clear Air Act)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007; ... When the current Bush administration took office in 2000, our natural resources were placed on the auction block, and the landmark laws designed to protect them came under attack. Over the course of six years, NRDC attorneys filed five lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency ...
Protecting an Alaskan beauty.(DISPATCHES)(yellow-billed loon)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007; ... The sight of a yellow-billed loon, landing gracefully on the cool waters off Alaska's northern coast, is that of a bird calmly unaware of the threats to its survival. By some estimates, fewer than 17,000 yellow-billed loons exist, making it the rarest of all loon species. Their nesting ...
Silicon Valley's eco-warrior.(DISPATCHES)(Bob Epstein)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007; ... In August 2006, when the California State Legislature passed what has been widely touted as the most important global warming law in the United States, the environmental community cheered the dawning of a brighter, more hopeful future for the planet. In a display that won key votes ...
Come play with us in the blogosphere.(DISPATCHES)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007; ... In recent months, NRDC has launched a number of interactive Web sites in order to better connect members and the general public with NRDC experts. The sites showcase news and information from our many new partners, from celebrity friends like Jack Black and supermodel Angela Lindvall, who ...
Eye on Washington.(DISPATCHES)(energy bill)(Brief article)
Sep 22, 2007; ... THE SUMMER OF 2007 SAW heated debate over energy policy on Capitol Hill, and in the end--finally--signs of progress. In early August the Senate passed an historic energy bill that would raise the average fuel economy of a new car in America to 35 miles per gallon from today's 22.2 miles ...
Gadgets go green: Noah Horowitz is the brains behind NRDC's efforts to reduce energy use by electronics and appliances.(fieldwork)(National Resource Defense Council)
Sep 22, 2007; ... THE SUV HAS BECOME THE GAS-GUZZLING POSTER child of American wastefulness, the villain of climate change. But there's a more insidious energy-guzzler sitting in your living room. It's your TV. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Our national love affair with television has never ...
Africa's next Green Revolution.(open space)
Sep 22, 2007; ... THE WORLD'S BILLION AND A HALF POOREST people--the quarter of humanity malnourished to the point of brain damage and deformity--are mostly rural and live on mostly arid lands. Global warming will increase the stock of such lands, especially in Africa, which already has the world's most ...