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Banks are funding destructive mountaintop removal mining.

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Oct. 1, 2011   Leave a Comment  

Many major banks invest in companies that engage in the environmentally destructive practice of mountaintop removal coal mining, whereby the tops of mountains are blown up to expose the recoverable coal. Despite some banks' stated intent to limit such financing, a Sierra Club/Rainforest Action Network "report card" indicates that few are yet walking the talk. (Media credit/ilovemountains.org)

Another notch in Bank of America’s belt

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What is genetic pollution?

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Sept. 17, 2011   Leave a Comment  

The release of genetically modified organisms into the environment threatens genetic diversity, which is essential for global food security. And a lack of genetic diversity in agriculture, says Greenpeace, can already be linked to many of the major crop epidemics in human history. (Media credit/Punch Stock)

Are we on a dangerous path?

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Will “Plan B” save the environment?

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Sept. 17, 2011   Leave a Comment  

Lester R. Brown's "Plan B" is an integrated program with four interdependent goals: drastically cutting carbon dioxide emissions, stabilizing population, eradicating poverty, and restoring the Earth’s natural systems. Pictured: Mr. Brown and the first Plan B book, published in 2003. There have been three subsequent editions.

Book spawns environmental movement

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Pharmaceuticals in the water

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Sept. 10, 2011   Leave a Comment  

Researchers have identified traces of pharmaceutical drugs -- including antibiotics, hormones, contraceptives and steroids -- in the drinking water supplies of some 40 million Americans. (Stockbyte)

Should you drink the water?

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What’s the latest on the pet overpopulation issue?

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Sept. 10, 2011   6 Comments  

Major progress has been made in reducing the overpopulation of cats and dogs that had resulted in some 12 to 20 million being euthanized each year in the 1970s. Today, despite there being more than twice the number of companion animals in U.S. homes, the number euthanized yearly is down to three to four million. There is still clearly more work to be done. (Comstock)

Listen to Bob Barker and Drew Carey!

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How can we protect more endangered species?

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Sept. 5, 2011   Leave a Comment  

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is evaluating 757 imperiled plant and animal species to determine if they should be added to the federal Endangered Species List by 2018. Among the wildlife getting a closer look is the walrus, pictured here. (iStock Photo)

New agreement may help

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Improving light bulb energy efficiency

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Sept. 5, 2011   Leave a Comment  

New efficiency requirements for light bulbs may sound the death knell for incandescents, which have not changed significantly since Thomas Edison invented them in 1879. Newer, more efficient styles cost more but could save consumers some $6 billion in annual energy costs by 2015 -- while also eliminating the equivalent of 30 large power plants' electrical output and 14 million cars worth of carbon emissions. (Media credit/Hemera Collection)

Even conservatives are against unnecessarily inefficient lighting

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What is nonpoint source pollution?

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Aug. 26, 2011   Leave a Comment  

Nonpoint source pollution comes from many diffuse sources, but in the aggregate creates a formidable challenge for municipal, state and federal environmental and water control authorities -- and is likely the largest threat to our water quality. Pictured: Runoff of fertilizer-laced soil from a farm. (USDA)

Whose fault is it?

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Does medical waste still wash up on American beaches?

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Aug. 26, 2011   Leave a Comment  

Medical waste washing up on New Jersey beaches was a big problem in the late 1980s, closing beaches along a 50-mile stretch of the New Jersey shore. Although that problem was addressed for the most part, bacterial contamination from sewage treatment outflows, contaminated storm water and other sources caused more than 24,000 beach closures or advisories across the U.S. last year. Pictured: a washed-up syringe. (iStock)

An analysis of potential problems

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Consequences of stripping the EPA of water quality regulatory authority

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Aug. 26, 2011   Leave a Comment  

A new bill, passed by the House of Representatives and awaiting vote in the Senate, aims to strip the EPA of its authority over individual states' water quality. Pictured: The Cuyahoga River on fire in 1952. When it happened again in 1969 it helped kick start the modern environmental movement including the establishment of the Clean Water Act and the founding of the EPA. (Media credit/Wikipedia)

It’s happening

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Ocean dead zones

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Aug. 13, 2011   Leave a Comment  

Perhaps the most infamous U.S. dead zone is an 8,500 square mile swath of the Gulf of Mexico, not far from where the nutrient-laden Mississippi River, which drains farms up and down the Midwest, lets out.

Hypoxic oceans

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Our destructive consumer culture

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Aug. 8, 2011   Leave a Comment  

William Rees of the University of British Columbia reports that human society is in a “global overshoot,” consuming 30 percent more material than is sustainable from the world’s resources. Pictured: A "Buy Nothing Day" activist leaflets in San Francisco. (Media credit/Steve Rhodes)

“Global overshoot”

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Cyanide fishing is killing the fish, the reefs, and maybe us

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Aug. 8, 2011   Leave a Comment  

Cyanide fishing began in the 1960s in the Philippines as a way to capture live reef fish for sale primarily to aquarium owners, but is today also done to supply specialty restaurants in Hong Kong and other large Asian cities. Pictured: The ocellaris clownfish, a popular aquarium fish often captured after first being stunned by bursts of cyanide-laced seawater squirted from a plastic bottle. (Metatron)

All so the rich can have another status symbol

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The Green Cafe Network

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July 30, 2011   Leave a Comment  

The Green Café Network (GCN), a project of Earth Island Institute, seeks to green the coffeehouse industry and harness cafe culture for community environmental awareness. Pictured: San Francisco's Border Lands Cafe, a GCN member. (Media credit/Steve Rhodes)

Environmental stewards, banding together

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What are debt-for-Nature Swaps?

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July 30, 2011   Leave a Comment  

Debt-for-nature swaps are agreements whereby a portion of a developing nation’s foreign debt is forgiven in exchange for local investments in environmental conservation measures. Pictured: a Yellow Spotted River Turtle in Bolivia's Beni Biosphere Reserve, the location of the very first debt-for-nature swap, brokered by the non-profit Conservation International in 1987 (Open Cage)

A novel idea, but what does it do?

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Modern agriculture’s enormous environmental footprint

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July 23, 2011   8 Comments  

With the vast majority of the world's farms now relying on synthetic chemicals to grow crops and petroleum-derived fuels to drive the engines of production, modern agriculture has become overwhelmingly toxic to the atmosphere and is hastening global warming. Pictured: a crop duster in Tennessee. (Media credit/Roger Smith via Flickr)

Synthetic is bad

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Sorting through plastics

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July 23, 2011   2 Comments  

According to the Colorado-based EcoCycle, the use of disposable packaging -­ especially plastic ­- has increased by more than 10,000 percent over the past 50 years. Pictured: plastics headed for sorting and recycling. (Media credit/Dan LaMee via Flickr)

Recycle by number

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Looking at the safety of carpets made from recycled PET plastic

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July 16, 2011   2 Comments  

There is no documented proof that recycled PET plastic carpet fibers are dangerous if ingested in small amounts, but it is advisable to stay safe by keeping them out of our mouths and noses by vacuuming often. Pictured: PET bottles headed for recycling. (Media credit/Twicepix via Flickr)

Recycled plastic bottles OK to walk on?

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Could we harness energy from earthquakes? Not likely.

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July 16, 2011   Leave a Comment  

Big earthquakes throw off vast amounts of energy, but fault lines run deep below the Earth's surface, so tapping into that energy would be a challenge way beyond what humans -- at least at present -- have the technological capability to achieve. Pictured: Port au Prince in the aftermath of the earthquake that rocked Haiti in January 2010. (Media credit/Marco Dormino/United Nations Development Programme)

Theoretically,,,

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KFC, Taco Bell, and the destruction of the rain forests

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July 9, 2011   3 Comments  

YUM! Brands, which operates 38,000 fast food restaurants in 110 countries (including KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, WingStreet, A&W and Long John Silver’s), continues to ignore calls to stop sourcing palm oil, paper and other goods from suppliers notorious for destroying tropical rainforests in Indonesia and elsewhere. Indonesia’s tropical rainforests are home to orangutans, tigers, elephants, clouded leopards and dozens of other endangered plants and animals. (Media credit/Marufish via Flickr)

Even McDonald’s takes better care of the environment

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