Sierra back issues from July 2001:
Who Needs Nature?(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... For most people, recent advances in biotechnology are charged with hope. We hear tales of more nutritious food, hardier crops, healthier economies. We view maps of the human genome, which could lead to healthier people. It's too early to say whether these dreams are realistic, but we do ...
LETTERS.(Letter to the Editor)
Jul 01, 2001 ... BUSHWHACKED I was appalled by the outcome of the recent presidential election. I progressed to near-panic with the selection and acceptance of the members of the cabinet. Then I received the March/April Sierra and I realized that, one, I am not alone, and, two, there is a big ...
CORRECTIONS.(Correction Notice)
Jul 01, 2001 ... In our "Wildlands Report Card" on page 69 of the March/April issue, the 1,000 acres we celebrated adding to Sterling Forest were in New York (not New Jersey as our headline implied), though activists from both states worked on the expansion. In "Bug Walk" in the same issue, we placed ...
The New Conquerors.(wildlife conservation)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... Just when you thought the wilds were safe ... "Baja California is a wonderful example of how much bad roads can do for a country," Joseph Wood Krutch wrote in his classic Sierra Club book, Baja California and the Geography of Hope. Bold words back then in midcentury, when ...
Wish You Weren't Here.(environment and oil drilling)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... Bush officials would love to explore our protected wildlands too--with oil drills President Bush has already expressed his eagerness to drill for oil in the biological heart of a national wildlife refuge in Alaska's Arctic. But why stop there? Administration officials and their ...
FOR THE RECORD.(quotations on drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001 ... "It's an all-you-can-eat buffet for the oil industry." --Adam Kolton of the Alaska Wilderness League on the GOP budget proposal that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling and give the energy industry $21 billion in subsidies. Knight-Ridder/ Tribune Business ...
Puget Sound's Alarm.(PCBs contamination)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... Banned PCBs still threaten marine life In March 2000, a 22-year-old killer whale washed ashore just north of Bellingham, Washington. In what should have been the prime of its life, the whale, known as J-18, was emaciated, its reproductive organs underdeveloped. A normally ...
Keeping Tabs on George W. Bush.(environmental policy)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001 ... Dozens of Doozies In his brief tenure, George Bush has earned at least three dozen environmental black marks, including his well-publicized backtracking on the Kyoto treaty on global warming, continued effort to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, delay in implementing ...
Old King Coal.(coal industry)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... Can W.'s second-favorite energy source ever come clean? Even though she's been hearing about "clean coal" for 20 years, Citizens Coal Council director Carolyn Johnson still bursts into laughter when the subject comes up. "It's such an oxymoron!" she says, "There is no way to clean it up." ...
The Map George W. Doesn't Want You to See.(Arctic National Wildlife Refuge)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001 ... This is a simplified version of the map that got Ian Thomas fired. Thomas, a contract map-maker with the U.S. Geological Survey in Patuxent, Maryland, was abruptly dismissed this March after adding it to the 20,000 other maps he had posted to the agency's Web site (www.mbr-pwrc ....
Updates.(brief notes)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001 ... OLD-GROWTH WON'T GET THE AX. Campaigns by the Sierra Club and other groups have convinced 400 corporations and several U.S. cities to phase out the sale or use of wood from old-growth forests. One of the converts was Home Depot, the world's largest lumber retailer, which made the pledge in ...
THE HIDDEN LIFE OF cut flowers.(pesticide use by cut-flowers industry)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... A COLORFUL BOUQUET CAN BRIGHTEN A ROOM and warm the heart of its recipient. But the effects of some freshly cut flowers on the workers who grow them--and on the environment--aren't nearly so sweet. While the impact of pesticide use in the $7.6 billion U.S. cut-flower industry is just as ...
Bella Italia.(nature conservation in Italy and hiking trips offered by Sierra Club Outings)
Jul 01, 2001; ... The civilized approach to conservation There is no word in Italian for "wilderness." Dictionaries suggest selva, "forest," or deserto, "desert," but both fall short of the mark. Nor does natura quite capture our romantic New World notion of virgin territory "untrammelled by ...
Against the Grain.(environmental dangers of use of transgenic crops by developing countries)(Interview)
Jul 01, 2001; ... Why poor nations would lose in a biotech war on hunger Biotechnology has been heralded as a boon to developing countries, where the lion's share of the world's hungry dwell. Its breakthroughs--food crops genetically engineered to resist disease, pests, and drought, or to contain ...
Sowing TECHNOLOGY.(environmental dangers of plant genetic engineering)
Jul 01, 2001; ... the ecological argument against genetic engineering down on the farm drive the Nebraskan backroads in July and you will encounter one of the great technological wonders of the modern world: thousands of acres of corn extending to the vanishing point in all directions across the ...
BIOTECH BRIEF.(biotechnology industry notes)
Jul 01, 2001 ... FAST-GROWING FISH Salmon, carp, trout, and tilapia that grow up to six times more rapidly than those in the wild are being developed for commercial production in America and China. If the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves its proposal, Massachusetts-based Aqua Bounty ...
Spinning Science into GOLD.(management of research and product development by biotechnology industry)
Jul 01, 2001; ... When research scientist Arpad Pusztai appeared on British television in August 1998 to talk about his studies of genetically engineered potatoes, he was suspended and later fired from his job at the Rowett Research Institute in Scotland. After a distinguished 36-year career there, his ...
Fighting the Gene Giants.(Sierra Club Genetic Engineering Committee's lobbying for studies on long-term impact of transgenic plants in farming)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001 ... OVER THE LAST FIVE YEARS, millions of acres of farmland have been planted with genetically engineered crops, a technological upheaval that happened with virtually no public debate. Now a growing group of activists is demanding a thorough scientific evaluation of the purported benefits and ...
a nation of LAB RATS.(safety regulating of genetically-engineered food products by Food and Drug Administration)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... Is genetically engineered food bad for you? Maybe. Maybe not. If it's true that you are what you eat, now would be the time to start scrutinizing the fine print. Just five years after genetically engineered foods were quietly introduced into the marketplace, gene-manipulated ...
along came a SPIDER.(emulation of natural processes in product development and industrial research)
Jul 01, 2001; ... why tinker with nature when you can copy it? backed by billions of dollars in research funding, geneticists are altering nature at its most fundamental level. Meanwhile, some of their less-heralded--and less-funded--counterparts in other scientific disciplines are learning to ...
moments of truth.(environmentalists explain what led them to environmental activism)
Jul 01, 2001; ... When did you become an environmentalist? The events--big and small--that change our lives forever. a recent survey of Sierra Club members revealed that many can point to a particular moment when they realized that their fates were inextricably linked to that of the earth. It ...
WHAT INSPIRES YOU?(environmentalists explain what led them into environmental activism)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001 ... When Sierra asked readers to tell us what inspired them environmental activism, we were unprepared for the deluge that followed. Below is a tiny sampling from the fascinating collection that appears on Sierra's Web site at www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200107/inspire.asp. As a ...
Why I Hunt.
Jul 01, 2001; ... Stalking wild game in a rugged landscape brings one environmentalist closer to nature. I was a hunter before I came far up into northwest Montana, but not to the degree I am now. It astounds me sometimes to step back, particularly at the end of autumn, the end of the hunting ...
Strange Bedfellows or Natural Allies?(environment)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001 ... The Sierra Club has serious political differences with the National Rifle Association, but the two organizations can agree on one thing: The Katy Prairie in Texas, a winter home for millions of waterfowl that nest in the Midwest and Canada, should be protected. "It's perfectly obvious to ...
Ambassadors to an Alien Country.(Matt Bybee, environmentalist)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... "You could talk about walking through the canyons, and past the cool streams," Matt Bybee sighs, "but you can't describe what it's like." The high school senior from Farmington, Utah, is preparing to lobby his congressional representative to protect 9.1 million acres of Utah wildlands ....
Ansel Adams at 100.(wildlife photographer)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... While best known for his dramatic photographs of the Sierra Nevada, Ansel Adams was also a Iongtime activist and member of the Sierra Club Board of Directors from 1934 to 1971 .The energetic Adams played a pivotal role in the Club's publication department, delighted High Trip participants ...
Our Ears Are Burning.(celebrities)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001 ... "Like Survivor, body piercing, and casual Fridays, environmental consciousness is suddenly in. As the debate over a FedEx hub rages on, terms such as `wetlands,' `ozone pollution,' and `urban sprawl' have become fightin' words. The suburbs have gone Sierra Club." ...
DUMPSTER DELIGHT.(Lisa Heller, ecologist)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... Desperate to find a lost ring, Lisa Heller leapt into a dumpster at the University of Syracuse in New York one day in 1993. Instead of her jewelry, the graduate student found perfectly good clothing, lamps, and furniture; enough canned food to feed a family of four for a week; and a cigar ...
BOMBS AWAY.(Navy planning military operations near Big Sur, California)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... The Navy wants to put a practice bombing range near Big Sur, California, and for the Ventana Chapter, that means war. Supersonic jets would swoop as low as 500 feet over Fort Hunter Liggett, nine miles from the spectacularly rugged coast, at the rate of 3,000 flights a year. "These are the ...
ADOPT-A-DESERT.(Sierra club wins a court battle)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... After 20 years of battles with the Bureau of Land Management and offroad vehicle groups, the Sierra Club and other organizations settled a law-suit in January to protect 24 species of endangered plants and animals on 11 million acres of the California Desert Conservation Area, which ...
TOAD HUNTING.(observing frogs in their habitat)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... El Paso Group member Sue Watts can often be found in the gutter. And she's been taking her fellow Sierrans, students, and other Texans with her. As part of her participation in Frogwatch USA, a project of the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey, Watts leads outings ...
OUR NEW DIRECTORS.(Sierra club executives)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... In April, Sierra Club members reelected three incumbents and chose two new representatives to the Board of Directors. The winners of the election are: * Incumbent NICK AUMEN, an ecosystem-restoration scientist from Palm Beach County, Florida, and former vice president of the ...
Can Hollywood Save the World?(environmental issues in the movies)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... Tinseltown is going green. The characters in Home Improvement discuss emissions trading. A West Wing episode centers around energy efficiency and garbage disposal. The cast of Friends pours milk out of reusable glass bottles. Daughter Cassie on Family Law conducts an energy audit of her ...
BEAT THE HEAT.(web sites on energy conservation)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001; ... The dog days of summer are here. So how do you keep cool without contributing to greenhouse gases and the depletion of fossil fuels or facing skyrocketing utility prices and even blackouts? * Start with the comprehensive site run by the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy ...
Genetically Engineered Food: A Self-Defense Guide for Consumers.(Review)
Jul 01, 2001; ... Genetically Engineered Food: A Self-Defense Guide for Consumers by Ronnie Cummins and Ben Lilliston (Marlowe, $12.95; online at www.purefood.org) Like it or not, "you and your family are now part of a vast culinary and biological experiment--dining on an expanded menu of ...
John Muir: Nature's Visionary.(Review)
Jul 01, 2001 ... John Muir: Nature's Visionary by Gretel Ehrlich National Geographic, $35 Sierra Club founder John Muir is portrayed at top ...
First Fruit: The Creation of the Flavr Savr[TM] Tomato and the Birth of Biotech Food.(Review)
Jul 01, 2001; ... First Fruit: The Creation of the Flavr Savr[TM] Tomato and the Birth of Biotech Food by Brenda Martineau (McGraw-Hill, $24.95) This tell-all biography of a tomato differs from much popular criticism of genetic engineering--it's by an industry insider. Geneticist Brenda ...
NEW from SIERRA CLUB BOOKS.(Review)
Jul 01, 2001 ... Forward Drive: The Race to Build "Clean" Cars for the Future by Jim Motavalli is now rolling out in paperback model. Motavalli, editor of E magazine, explains how energy-saving cars were developed and what's down the road. My Story As Told by Water: Confessions, Druidic Rants, ...
Against the Grain: Biotechnology and the Corporate Takeover of Your Food.(Review)
Jul 01, 2001; ... Against the Grain: Biotechnology and the Corporate Takeover of Your Food produced by Britt Bailey, written by Marc Lappe, The Video Project, (831) 336-0160 Building on their book of the same title, Lappe and Bailey show planes laying down clouds of pesticide on green fields ...
LAST WORDS.(Aristotle)(Brief Article)
Jul 01, 2001 ... "Nature makes nothing in ...