Work in environmental journalism for very long and you can eventually become inured to catastrophe. Every ecosystem is on the brink of collapse; every endangered species is just a few steps from extinction; every government decision to authorize an oil well or a coal mine is the one that will push carbon emissions over the edge. The language of environmentalism is the language of scarcity and loss, a constantly repeated message that we cannot continue living the way we are...or else. Sometimes the sheer, ...

The giant Three Gorges Dam across China's Yangtze River has been mired in controversy ever since it was first proposed 88 years ago by Sun Yat Sen, the founding father of Modern China. In 1992, when Chinese Premier Li Peng submitted a proposal for the dam to China's normally pliant parliament, the National People's Congress, it ran into serious opposition and ultimately passed with the smallest margin in the legislature's history. Still, it is a sign of just how grave the problems are ...

My condition began when I read of a couple in New York City who had vowed to live a whole year without toilet paper. They were conducting an experiment in environmentally low-impact living as research for a book, they said. For a year they would eschew transportation that emits carbon dioxide, shun foods wrapped in plastic packaging and, most dramatically, conduct the elimination of their waste without the aid of wasteful paper products. I mull the logistics of paperless hygiene as ...

The nation's foremost opponent of environmental neglect and genetic engineering is waving a $20 bill as he makes a bet. The scene happens to be a meeting of the Humane Society in Houston, but the wager, which is part of his script, could just as easily be offered to a gathering of born-again environmentalists in Aspen, Colo.; at the Los Angeles home of TV producer Norman Lear; or on a college campus. Jeremy Rifkin bets that no one can answer ...

If you eat meat, the odds are high that you've enjoyed a meal made from an animal raised on a factory farm . According to the USDA, 2% of U.S. livestock facilities raise an estimated 40% of all farm animals. This means that pigs, chickens and cows are concentrated in a small number of very large farms. But even if you're a vegetarian, the health and environmental repercussions of these facilities may affect you. In his ...

It's hardly a secret that taking cocaine can change the way you feel and the way you behave. Now, a study published in the Jan. 8 issue of Science shows how it also alters the way the genes in your brain operate. Understanding this process could eventually lead to new treatments for the 1.4 million Americans with cocaine problems, and millions more around the world. The study, which was conducted on mice, is part of a hot new ...

Turmoil in the oil-rich Middle East, combined with the nuclear crisis in Japan, has caused a lot of experts to recalculate the global energy algorithm for the future. But people need energy now, and with the ravenous economic growth of China, India and Brazil, demand has grown even more urgent. The problem is that the clean fuels of the future--solar and wind power--are not even close to scale: only about 1% of U.S. electricity needs is supplied by the combination ...

On a farm in coastal Maine, a barn is going up. Right now it's little more than a concrete slab and some wooden beams, but when it's finished, the barn will provide winter shelter for up to six cows and a few head of sheep. None of this would be remarkable if it weren't for the fact that the people building the barn are two of the most highly regarded organic-vegetable farmers in the country: Eliot Coleman wrote the bible ...

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration say that very low levels of radiation have turned up in a sample of milk from Washington state. But federal officials say consumers should not worry. The FDA said such findings are to be expected in the coming days because of the nuclear crisis in Japan, and that the levels are expected to drop relatively quickly. Results from a March 25 milk sample taken from Spokane, Wash., show levels ...

These are dark days for the environmental movement. A year after being on the cusp of passing landmark legislation to cap greenhouse gases, greens are coming to accept the fact that the chance of national and international action on climate change has become more remote than ever. The Environmental Protection Agency is under attack by newly empowered Republicans in Congress who argue that the very idea of environmental protection is unaffordable for our debt-ridden country. Accustomed ...