Earth Island Journal articles from January 2008

Earth Island Journal archives from January 2008

The classroom outside.(From the Editor)
January 1, 2008... Growing up, I was lucky to have a large expanse of outdoor space in which to play. My parents owned a two-and-a-half acre lot on the north edge of Phoenix, AZ. Many of our neighbors had horses, and our home was a short dirt bike ride from the...

Fission omission.(Letters & E-mails)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... The article "Fission Division" in the Autumn 2007 issue is based on the false premise that nuclear power is somehow worthy of consideration as an alternative to energy sources that emit greenhouse gases. Nothing could be more misleading....

Hydropower that works.(Letters & E-mails)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... I found the article "Bubbling Waters" in the Autumn 2007 issue to be quite simplistic, and not up to the usually high standards of your magazine. The issue is much more complex than portrayed. If a dam is built to provide clean drinking...

Ethanol's impact.(Letters & E-mails)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... Gar Smith's recent column "Toyotas vs. Tortillas" contains some inaccuracies. Smith links increased ethanol to the fact that America has become a net food importer. America became a net food importer before corn ethanol's production...

[Cartoon].(Cartoon)
January 1, 2008... How about you spend LESS time studying how MY generation destroyed the environment and MORE time figuring out a magical solution? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Nothing's the matter with Kansas.(Temperature Gauge)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... In October, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment denied a utility corporation's plans to build a giant coal-fired power plant near the town of Holcomb, saying that the plant would generate too much greenhouse gas. The decision marked...

Buyer beware.(Temperature Gauge)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Turns out there is plenty of blame to go around for China's skyrocketing greenhouse gas emissions. A recent report by the London-based Centre for Climate Change Research concludes that as much as one-quarter of China's CO2 problem is...

Pipe dream.(Temperature Gauge)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Two well-known scientists are floating an idea that they think could help address global warming: placing tens of thousands of buoyant pipes in the ocean to better circulate nutrient-rich water and thereby encourage more algae, which reduce...

Buy the numbers.(Temperature Gauge)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Clean energy promoters say that wind power is one of the best ways of generating carbon-neutral electricity and addressing climate change. Yet nearly every time wind entrepreneurs seek to build new windmills, they face opposition from people...

Digging holes for themselves.(AFRICA)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... In the province of Mpumalanga in eastern South Africa, environmentalists and tour operators are battling mining companies to decide the economic and environmental future of the region. Unfortunately, the environmentalists seem to be in a bigger...

Trouble's brewing.(AFRICA)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The officials at Iriaini Tea Factory are in a lot of hot water with at least 10,000 members of clans surrounding Kenya's Karima Hill. The locals have had enough of the destructive practices of the business and are...

Where's the beef?(ASIA)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... According to some recent studies, grain-fed beef may be just as large a source of greenhouse emissions as all of the automobiles in the world. Evidently the Japanese environment ministry didn't get the memo. In September, the Japanese...

Allah forbids.(ASIA)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... A proposed nuclear power plant on the Indonesian island of Java is facing opposition from a group of Muslim clerics who say that the facility is forbidden under Islam because its risks to human life outweigh its benefits. In an effort to...

Overeating.(EUROPE)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Next time you visit a sushi restaurant, think twice before ordering the toro nigiri. Fishermen and environmentalists who monitor the ecosystem of the Mediterranean Sea warn that the population of bluefin tuna...

Prison greens.(EUROPE)(environmentally friendly Bastoey Island )(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Norway's Bastoey Island houses some of the country's most notorious criminals: Rapists, murderers, and narcotics smugglers number among the prison's 115 inmates. But while members of Bastoey's population may face lengthy sentences, they do so...

Green parties.(EUROPE)
January 1, 2008... US environmentalists would no doubt love to be in the place of British greens, who are in the enviable position of being aggressively courted by the major political parties. In recent months, leaders of the three largest political...

It's a girl!(NORTH AMERICA)
January 1, 2008... Put away the baby-blue bunting and buy some more pink crepe paper--the gender ratio of the human species appears to be shifting. Women in some Arctic villages are having twice as many girls as boys because of high levels of artificial...

Blowin' in the wind.(NORTH AMERICA)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... There was a time when hanging out the wash to dry was considered just a chore, not a right or a privilege. Today, however, many US homeowners must become vocal activists if they want to exercise the right to air their clean laundry. The...

Wheels steal meals.(NORTH AMERICA)
January 1, 2008... In a world where an estimated 850 million people go hungry, using agricultural lands to fuel cars instead of feed people is immoral, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food says. Jean Ziegler, an independent expert who reports to the...

Bottom of the barrel.(OCEANIA)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... This year's scorching drought in Australia could cut the country's wine production in half, costing vintners billions of dollars and forcing hundreds of winemakers out of business in what some climate scientists say is a harbinger of things to...

Tropics of cancer.(SOUTH AMERICA)
January 1, 2008... Use of a prohibited pesticide in the banana plantations of the French Caribbean has contributed to a "health disaster" on the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, according to a top cancer specialist. Banana cultivation is among the...

Plebiscite gives mine the shaft.(SOUTH AMERICA)
January 1, 2008... La Oroya, Peru--home to a huge copper mine and heavy metal smelter run by the mining corporation Doe Run--is among the 10 most polluted sites on the planet, according to a recent survey by the Blacksmith Institute. So it shouldn't be surprising...

Earth Island Institute welcomes two new projects: The California Student Sustainability Coalition and Bay Localize.(Earth Island Project Reports)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Earth Island Institute welcomes two new projects: The California Student Sustainability Coalition and Bay Localize. The California Student Sustainability Coalition (CSSC) unites and empowers the California community of higher education to...

Bay Localize.(Earth Island Project Reports)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Bay Localize is building a more self-reliant, sustainable, and socially just San Francisco Bay Area. The organization is working to catalyze a shift from a globalized, fossil fuel-based economy that enriches a few and weakens most, to a...

Viva Sierra Gorda.(Earth Island Project Reports)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Too often, protected areas are in peril due to a lack of data, leaving them vulnerable to development interests, despite federal regulations designed to protect them. Precisely for this reason, the Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve has...

Energy Action.(Earth Island Project Reports)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... From November 2 to 5, Energy Action organized Power Shift, the first-ever youth climate change summit. More than 6,000 young people from every state and of every background took their experiences from campus and local climate victories to...

Nature in the City.(Earth Island Project Reports)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Nature in the City will explore this dilemma with the 2008 GGNRA Endangered Species Big Year: a race against time to see and save the GGNRA's imperiled species. Participants in the Big Year will attempt to see each of the GGNRA's 33 listed...

Bay Area Wilderness Training.(Earth Island Project Reports)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... You can create the chance of a lifetime for at-risk and underprivileged youth to experience the outdoors. Join others to climb a peak, raise money, and walk away with over $1,500 worth of free mountaineering gear. The funds you raise will go to...

Kids for the Bay.(Earth Island News)
January 1, 2008... A condominium developer would die for the view from Misao Brown's light-filled, plant-festooned third-grade classroom at Paden Elementary School in Alameda, CA. Eight-foot-tall windows look onto the sailboat masts of the town's nearby marina...

International marine mammal project.(Earth Island News)
January 1, 2008... Japan Dolphin Day 2007 Japan Dolphin Day on September 25 was a great success once again, thanks to all the work volunteers around the world did to bring it about. This year, 83 non-governmental environmental and animal welfare...

Turkey learns green lessons.(Spyhopping)
January 1, 2008... It was mid-afternoon in the ancient city of Ephesus and the temperature was hitting 115[degrees]F. The marble walls reflected the heat, turning the ruins into a huge solar cooker. Wilting tourists scuttled from one tree-shaded oasis to the...

Torch smog.
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It's August 8--exactly one year until Beijing's "Green Olympics"--and I'm in a taxi plodding along the city's crowded Fourth Ring Road. Near the "Bird's Nest," Beijing's main Olympic stadium, high-rise buildings...

Bird's-eye view.(1,000 Words)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... At first glance, the images resemble an Abstract Expressionist canvas--the more vivid paintings of Richard Diebenkorn's "Ocean Park" series, or something by Mark Rothko. The shades within the colors are incredibly deep and textured, creating a...

Greening the Ivory Tower: campuses make sustainability a core curriculum.
January 1, 2008... The hottest color on college campuses these days is cool-the-climate green. One obvious signal: More than 400 higher education leaders have signed on to the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment. Ralph Hexter, president of...

Life in a fishbowl.
January 1, 2008... The tanks in most aquarium shops display a beautiful abundance of underwater life. Striped butterfly fish zip around deep purple coral. Orange anthias dance around bulbous sea anemones. Press your nose to the glass, and, for a moment, you can...

Trash collectors: Venezuela's Geografia Viva improves quality of life through composting education in elementary schools.
January 1, 2008... Vicente Emilio Sojo Bolivarian School is tucked into the labyrinth of streets and corridors of La Vega, a Caracas barrio of more than 100,000 residents on the southern end of the Venezuelan capital. Through the classroom windows, block homes...

Educational trailblazers: Expeditionary Learning guides students on a new path.
January 1, 2008... The upper-middle-class suburb of Stapleton outside Denver, CO, would probably not spring to mind were you to think about where some of the most radical ideas in education are thriving. There is nothing radical about Stapleton, other than the...

Conversation: David Orr discusses ecological instruction in the 21st century.(Interview)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Since the 1992 publication of his influential book Ecological Literacy, David Orr has been among the leading thinkers of the US environmental movement. His day job is working as a professor of environmental studies...

Everyone has a story.
January 1, 2008... At age 17, Crystal Durham exhibited the growing pains typical of so many teenagers. Eager to get away from her parents' home in northern California and find her own way in the world, she headed south to study at UCLA--away from home, but not...

Taking care of business: are corporate-funded research programs influencing the search for environmental solutions?
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "With global warming breathing down our necks, energy is hot," reads a recent online newsletter from the student-run University of California Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative. "And at Berkeley, green...

Boiling point: the campus climate movement plays political hardball.
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I met up with Marc Brodeur outside New York University's student center on a muggy day in mid-August. Brodeur, a wiry, flesh-faced blond, had just ridden his bike from Brooklyn across the Manhattan Bridge, something...

Planet Earth.(Video recording review)
January 1, 2008... Planet Earth Produced by BBC Films and the Discovery Channel. Narrated by David Attenborough. Five DVDs. Dig deep into your imagination, and please remember, there are no right answers. If you could build something--anything--what would it...

Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America.(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America by Eric Jay Dolin. 373 pages, hardcover. W.W. Norton & Co., 2007. Was there ever a more romantic, legendary occupation in American history than the whaling industry, pitting men, handheld...

Voices: playing for keeps.(Viewpoint essay)
January 1, 2008... Growing up in a small town in Mexico, I was delighted to be surrounded by the beauty of nature, and to always be able to enjoy clean air. Only a few people had the privilege of owning a car, and so we were able to breathe without worrying about...