Earth Island Journal articles from June 2008

Earth Island Journal archives from June 2008

Breaking the habit.(FROM THE EDITOR)(Editorial)
June 22, 2008... America, as even President Bush acknowledges, is addicted to oil. If so, then biofuels are little better than methadone. Our addiction is dangerous. It is one of the primary sources of the unchecked carbon emissions that are altering the...

Different seasoning.(LETTERS & E-MAILS)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2008... I have been a subscriber of the Journal for over a decade, and have always been surprised when I get the magazine that it persists in dating itself with the seasons of the Northern Hemisphere. I thought it was "News of the World Environment."...

Dam it.(LETTERS & E-MAILS)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2008... I have recently uncovered a story your readers may find compelling. The Matte Group of Chile is proposing a dam project in Patagonia that could displace a large portion of the Indigenous population and destroy the habitats of endangered plant...

Corrections.(LETTERS & E-MAILS)(Correction notice)
June 22, 2008... Due to a multiplication error, the Spring 2008 Spyhopping column "Tapping the Fat of the Land" overestimated the weight of overweight Americans. The correct figure is 583 thousand pounds of excess fat, not 583 million. The adjusted energy value...

Biodiversity bonanza.(AFRICA)(lowering deforestation in Madagascar)
June 22, 2008... The Indian Ocean island of Madagascar has dramatically reduced deforestation as the country's leaders try to attract tourists who are interested in exploring the nation's unique ecosystems. Scientists believe that Madagascar's land mass...

There has been blood.(AFRICA)(petroleum industry in Sudan)
June 22, 2008... Already battered by decades of civil war, some villagers in southern Sudan are now suffering from the country's booming oil industry, which has displaced people from their homes and is poisoning their water. The country's infamous humanitarian...

Bottom of the well.(ASIA)(Yemen's freshwater supply)
June 22, 2008... The desert nation of Yemen is running out of water--and the Yemeni government's inability to cope with the impending disaster may be a glimpse of things to come as the globe's freshwater resources decline. According to the country's water...

Earning their stripes.(ASIA)(protecting tigers in India)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... India's entire population of tigers is estimated at 1,411. It's very likely that the figure is so low, the number isn't even being rounded to the nearest hundred; those extra 11 tigers make a big difference. This sorry figure is half of the...

Troubled waters.(ASIA)(Hong Kong's humpback dolphins)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Pollution. Constant traffic. Overfishing. Life isn't easy for the 200 Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins struggling to survive near Hung Kong's Chek Lap Kok International Airport. But since the pinkish-toned humpbacks, also known as Chinese white...

Norwegian wails.(EUROPE)(whaling's greenhouse gas emissions)
June 22, 2008... If a Norwegian-based pro-whaling lobby has its way, the environmentalists' rallying cry of "Save the Whales" will soon be changed to "Save the Whales... for Lunch!" Norway and Japan, the two largest whaling nations in the world, are...

Corn Nuts.(NORTH AMERICA)(genetically modified corn in Mexico and Japan)
June 22, 2008... Many small farmers in Mexico are outraged by a recent government decision to allow the experimental planting of some strains of genetically modified (GM) corn. Corn was domesticated in Mexico and has been grown there for as long as 9,000...

Washing green?(NORTH AMERICA)
June 22, 2008... Some say the deal is corporate greenwashing. Others argue that the collaboration between a major chemical company and the nation's largest environmental group is a way to shift the market toward more sustainable cleaning products. Either way,...

Bear down.(OCEANIA)(climate change's effect on koala bears' nutrition)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... The skyrocketing prices for key food commodities such as wheat and rice have been blamed, in part, on Australia's prolonged drought, which has sunk grain harvests there to all-time lows. Now it appears that another Australian food is at...

Road warriors?(OCEANIA)(environmental protection in Australia)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Battered by a prolonged drought that some scientists say is related to global climate change, citizens in Australia are showing new signs of ecological awareness. Last year, Australian voters threw out Prime Minister John Howard, a global...

Fumigant fight.(SOUTH AMERICA)(herbicide spraying in Ecuador)
June 22, 2008... For nearly a decade, Ecuador has used neighborly diplomacy to ask Colombia to stop aerial herbicide spraying of coca and poppy fields along their shared border. The spraying, Ecuadorians say, sickens people and livestock, poisons farmland, and...

Stunt man.(TEMPERATURE GAUGE: Notes from a warming world)(Virgin Atlantic Airlines flight test using biofuel)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Earlier this war, British billionaire Sir Richard Branson--the thrill-seeking head of Virgin Atlantic Airlines--once again grabbed the media's attention when his company conducted the first test flight using biofuels. A Virgin Atlantic Boeing...

Calculating disaster.(TEMPERATURE GAUGE: Notes from a warming world)(climate change costs)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Dealing with global climate change will either be relatively cheap, or hugely expensive depending on whether we take action now, or wait until later. According to a new report by the Environmental Defense Fund, reducing US greenhouse gas...

Warming up the skeptics.(TEMPERATURE GAUGE: Notes from a warming world)(Conference news)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... In March, global warming skeptics gathered for a conference in New York City' sponsored by the Heartland Institute, a libertarian organization committed to a "free-market perspective." The meeting was billed as an important forum to display the...

Whether Maps?(TEMPERATURE GAUGE: Notes from a warming world)(climate zone map)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... For many people, planting a garden is a rite of spring, and for many gardeners, the US Department of Agriculture's color-coded climate zone map is a handy way of knowing which plants will thrive where. But with global warming causing noticeable...

Globalization's carbon bootprint.(SPYHOPPING: A whale's act of coming out of the water to examine its surroundings)
June 22, 2008... Anyone interested in big picture solutions to climate change must eventually confront the inconvenient truth that one of the major forces stoking the greenhouse is globalization. The infrastructure of global trade--ships, trains, cars, trucks,...

International Marine Mammal Project.(EARTH ISLAND PROJECT NEWS)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... In the 1990s, 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth became a best-selling book, with five million copies in print. Author John Javna and his children, Sophie and Jesse, have re-written the book for the 21st century, and the book hit...

Big Wildlife.(EARTH ISLAND PROJECT NEWS)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Each year, an estimated 30,000 bears are killed illegally in the US. Most are poached to feed the lucrative black market for bear parts, especially their gallbladders, commonly used in traditional Asian medicines. Although alternatives to bear...

Energy Action Network.(EARTH ISLAND PROJECT NEWS)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Billy Parish of Energy Action Network started a record label with three friends about a year and a half ago. The group's first major project has recently been released. "The Green Owl Comp: A Benefit for Energy Action Coalition" includes...

Campaign to Safeguard Alaska's Waters.(EARTH ISLAND PROJECT NEWS)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... The Campaign to Safeguard Alaska's Waters (C-SAW), following its successful campaign to place Ocean Rangers on cruise ships in Alaska (see page 39), has sponsored a California Ocean Ranger bill (SB1582). The bill would place marine engineers...

Primal Nature/Yggdrasil.(EARTH ISLAND PROJECT NEWS)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Primal Nature/Yggdrasil (eii.org/yggdrasil) has launched Big Wilderness (primalnature.org/bigwild.htm), a new section of its Web site, to present visionary ideas and proposals concerning the nation's remaining wild lands. The first posting is...

Viva Sierra Gorda.(EARTH ISLAND PROJECT NEWS)(campaign to prevent the transmission line over Sierra Gorda Biosphere Reserve)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... A technical review of a proposed high voltage power line by the Environmental Ministry's National Commission of Natural Protected Areas shows that a high voltage transmission line proposed by Mexico's Federal Commission of Electricity (CFE) to...

Restoration initiatives: restoring imaginations to reclaim land.(EARTH ISLAND PROJECT NEWS)
June 22, 2008... The price of Southern California's population explosion and pavement expansion has been paid, in part, by wetlands. During the last century, more than 90 percent of the coastal wetlands of Southern California have been lost, depriving the...

Ethical traveler: where is tourism headed?(EARTH ISLAND PROJECT NEWS)
June 22, 2008... As concerns about climate change grow, worries that tourism is contributing to environmental destruction have increased. Suddenly, global warming is changing what it means to be an "ethical traveler." New questions are reshaping the idea of...

BAWT: carpooling to the country.(EARTH ISLAND PROJECT NEWS)(Bay Area Wilderness Training, City CarShare)
June 22, 2008... In May, two San Francisco Bay Area-based nonprofit organizations--Bay Area Wilderness Training (BAWT) and City CarShare--launched a partnership that will get hundreds of youth outdoors, many for the first time. Transportation to wilderness...

Roadkill.(congestion pricing)(Cover story)
June 22, 2008... In 1996, just three days after he received the Nobel Prize in Economics, William Vickrey--the father of congestion pricing--was driving to a conference at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge, MA. Thirty miles north of New York...

We are traffic.(1,000 WORDS)(Critical Mass bicycle ride)
June 22, 2008... The first ride, which took place in September of 1992, was modest: Less than 50 bicyclists gathered on San Francisco's Market Street for what they then called "Commute Clot," a loosely organized effort to ride their bikes en masse and, in the...

The big melt: notes from the front lines of climate change.
June 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There is no sunrise or sunset. It is December, nearly 350 miles north of the Arctic Circle. What light there is comes as a deep cobalt blue that begins shortly before noon and heightens to a liquid lilac before...

Cruise control: how a small band of activists fought Alaska's tour industry--and won.
June 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] On August 22, 2006, a political earthquake shook The Last Frontier. Defying expectations, Alaskans approved a ballot initiative to reform the state's powerful cruise ship industry. Under the new law, each passenger...

Flying into trouble: where are carbon offsets taking us?
June 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] According to the carbon calculator I found online, a passenger on a round-trip airline flight from San Francisco to Seattle generates about one metric ton of [CO.sub.2]. Since my destination was the Green Festival,...

Conversation.(Katie Alvord)(Interview)
June 22, 2008... We're infatuated with our cars. And why shouldn't we be? After all, we spend so much time in our automobiles that it's only natural to have feelings of intimacy toward these machines: Thirty percent of US drivers say their cars have a...

The call of the kiwi: New Zealanders are working to save their national symbol.
June 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Pouakai Trail It takes some effort to hike around a mountain and never see it, but somehow I managed to do just that while visiting Mt. Taranaki on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island. A shame,...

Fueling the future? The hunt for a sustainable biofuel.
June 22, 2008... The wind blowing through LaBelle, Florida was soft and warm. Large, billowy clouds hung above Mark Dalton's 10-acre field, dappling it with shadows. The field, planted in January 2008, was a regiment of seedlings standing erect in the sandy...

Get on the bus: Curitiba, Brazil rolls out a transit solution.
June 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The first thing a visitor to Curitiba, Brazil sees upon arriving at the city's bus terminal is a line of aged boxcars just across the street. Left out in front of the old train depot, the broken down cars are...

Disappearing destinations.(Book review)
June 22, 2008... by Kimberly Lisagor and Heather Hansen 400 pages, paperback Vintage Departures Original, 2008 Recycle plastic bottles, turn off the lights, carpool to work, eat organic, compost, shop local, and plant a tree. Environmentalists...

The travails of the rails.(VOICES)(Personal account)
June 22, 2008... I became an avid train rider a few years ago, after ditching my car for environmental reasons. Today, I also have an economic incentive to travel by train. With gasoline costs skyrocketing, Amtrak has reached what Could be a tipping point--it's...