E Magazine articles from November 1997

E Magazine archives from November 1997

Winds of change. (renewable energy) (Editorial)
November 1, 1997... It is possible to reduce energy use, but most people need an economic incentive. Faced with a huge jump in heating oil prices, Americans cut their home use of fossil fuel by 25 percent between 1980 and 1985. When the energy crisis eased, their...

Terri Swearingen: the long war with WTI. (Waste Technologies Industries)(Interview)
November 1, 1997... As a registered nurse and mother, Terri Swearingen, 40, knows a little something about persistence. For the last two decades, she has been making thousands of calls and speeches, conducting health surveys, appealing to Environmental Protection...

Highways to hell: bikes and buses battle the road, tire and asphalt lobby.
November 1, 1997... You're riding your bike to work on the Willamette River Pathway in Portland, Oregon. Before you get to your office, you stop for a shower at Bike Central, a commuting facility downtown. That evening, you put your bicycle on a bus rack and head...

Raising a ruckus: learning how to monkey-wrench at direct action camp.
November 1, 1997... Being an effective rabble-rouser takes more than fearlessness and commitment to the cause. It also takes skill, say the environmental graybeards at The Ruckus Society. Ruckus was founded in 1995 by two civil disobedience giants, Mike Roselle...

Mad cowboys: the beef industry takes aim at 'food disparagement.'
November 1, 1997... "You said [mad cow disease] could make AIDS look like the common cold?" asked TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey. "Absolutely," said her guest, Howard Lyman of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). "That's an extreme statement, you know,"...

Insuring disaster.
November 1, 1997... When Hurricane Andrew swept through Florida in 1992, whole towns were ripped apart, and insurance companies were slapped with a decimating $16 billion bill. It was a wake-up call for a once-complacent industry. In the wake of Andrew, plus $4...

Delaying justice for the pelicans.
November 1, 1997... By the mid-1960s, DDT had decimated the brown pelican population of the Gulf Coast areas of Mississippi and Louisiana. A generation of Gulf Coast residents grew up never seeing the soaring brown pelicans, which had once been plentiful. After...

Pirates of the trees. (tree thieves)
November 1, 1997... New York's tree thieves will be in for a rude awakening if they hijack a "free" Christmas tree from alongside the Long Island Expressway this winter. Instead of the gentle scent of pine, they'll be taking home a stench worse than a dead skunk in...

The truth about toxins.
November 1, 1997... Sitting at a computer terminal in a noisy newsroom, New Orleans Times-Picayune writer Mark Schleifstein is making a county-by-county comparison of Louisiana's chemical plants, detailing what pollutants are released into the air and water, and how...

On the chopping block. (logging in Belize)
November 1, 1997... In a country where almost everyone earns their living from the environment - either farming the land, harvesting the sea, or guiding hordes of tourists to pristine natural areas the government of Belize has tarnished its environmental reputation...

Trouble above the treeline: insurgents take on the venerable - and increasingly activist - Appalachian Mountain Club.
November 1, 1997... New Hampshire's Presidential Range, a picturesque area topped by expansive alpine terrain in the White Mountain National Forest, has long been known as a place where fair weather can quickly turn vicious. No one knows this better than the...

Turf wars: swelling human populations are crowding out other species.
November 1, 1997... It's not just in places like India or Zimbabwe that endangered plant and animal species are battling it out with growing numbers of people for the few remaining parcels of habitat. In the United States, too, population growth is the single...

Electric currents: as Americans worry about oil prices, global warming and a disintegrating nuclear industry, renewable energy is making a comeback.(Energy for the Next Century, part 1)
November 1, 1997... This just in from the Cato Institute: Renewable energy is "expensive, environmentally counterproductive and unsustainable." Cato President Robert L. Bradley says that electricity from renewable energy plants "is, on average, twice as expensive...

Power struggle: will utility deregulation finally unplug 'dirty' electricity?
November 1, 1997... At United Illuminating Company's harborside Unit 3 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, built in 1969, Kentucky coal rides in on a conveyor belt to five huge blue silos that can each hold 700 tons. When pulverized to the consistency of talcum powder and...

Beyond batteries: new technologies power the car of the future.
November 1, 1997... Every year, 30,000 people die in the U.S. from airborne toxins released by automobiles. Also largely because of the car, 100 million Americans live in areas with dangerous ground-level ozone concentrations. It's plain that, with a million cars a...

The last wild place. (Antarctica)
November 1, 1997... Once Thought Protected Forever, Antarctica's Delicate And Precarious Beauty Is Under Threat Antarctica is widely referred to as the last wilderness area on Earth, and with good reason. It is our highest, driest, coldest, windiest and most...

Premature puberty: is early sexual development the price of pollution?
November 1, 1997... Ten-year-old Christina Carter (not her real name) hides in her room when she wants to play Barbies. Although she has the mind of a 10-year-old, Christina has the body of a sexually mature woman. She started developing breasts and pubic hair at...

Island adventure: in the year of the reef, Bonaire offers great diving and protected coral.
November 1, 1997... In stark contrast to the runaway American-style construction on neighboring Aruba (McDonald's, Burger King, Subway, a water-intensive golf course and numerous American hotel chains), the island of Bonaire, in the Netherlands Antilles off the...

Green and read: there's no one-stop shopping for socially conscious money publications.
November 1, 1997... Despite a trunkload of yellowing press clippings from the mainstream media and the burgeoning ranks of socially responsible mutual funds, coverage of progressive money issues remains a niche market. There still isn't a full-fledged magazine -...

The E-car update: want to buy an electric? Get ready to hurry up and wait.
November 1, 1997... If you are lucky enough to live in the state of California, you can - today - visit a car dealer and drive home in a brand-new, road-ready electric vehicle (EV). If you live anywhere else, the pickings are pretty slim. Although strict new Clean...

The non-toxic nursery: greening up the room that baby grows up in.
November 1, 1997... Call it a new parent rite of passage: eager mom- and dad-to-be armed with wash buckets and paint brushes (and credit cards) transform a drab bedroom into a cute, colorful nest for the new arrival. Walls are scrubbed and painted, plush carpeting...