Environment
ArchiveThe International Air Transport Association announced their commitment on Saturday to stabilize carbon emissions by 2020 as well as reduce airplane carbon emissions by 50% by 2050. Treehugger writes that the IATA is also pushing for further support from the government concerning…
According to the New York Times, the United States Forest Service is pushing to pass new rules that would keep mountain bikers off of hundreds of miles of trails across the nation. Lighter mountain bikes built over recent years have allowed…
The president of Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, will hold a cabinet meeting on October 17th — 20 feet underwater, reports Globalwarmingisreal.com. In preparation for the underwater meeting, he has asked members of his cabinet to take scuba lessons and learn…
Today, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated 5,855 square miles of nearshore waters in Alaska as critical habitats for the threatened sea otter, writes ENN.com. The areas along the Aleutian Islands, Bering Sea, and…
The world's largest tensegrity cycle and pedestrian bridge is now open in Brisbane, Queensland. The tensegrity bridge, referring to the synergy between the bridge's tension and compression components, will provide access for…
Carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. should be down by 5.9 percent in 2009, Reuters reports. The reason: lowered demand for electricity and transportation fuel because of the recession. The Energy Information Administration of the Department of Energy says that emissions should increase…
A green motorsport event? Yup, in this case a historic race on the Isle of Man. Gentlemen, start your (battery-powered, zero-carbon, no-decibel) engines!
Last week, Outside's John McCauley and Will Palmer (based in Santa Fe) and Jeremy Spencer (based in Portland) participated in the third annual Portland Oyster Race, part of Merrell's 2009 urban-adventure-race series, which moved on from Portland to San Francisco last weekend and concludes in Austin (Oct.
According to The Ski Blog, the Municipality of Whistler has pledged to go carbon neutral by 2010, just in time to host the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. This will include cutting down on direct emission as well as purchasing carbon credits. Whistler…
Ottawa has a troubling air pollution problem, but it's not caused by the normal suspects. A crematorium from Hope Cemetery is blanketing the air daily with fumes from the cremation of dead bodies, the CBC reports. “We've all smelt it, we've…
In honor of the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December, Google and the Danish government are presenting interactive maps that will show what the Earth will look like in various stages of global warming. Check out the first climate tour…
The Klamath River in California, which was dammed up between 1908 and 1962, will have four dams removed beginning in 2020. The dams were erected by PacifiCorp, and their removal will supposedly allow for the revival of salmon and steelhead spawning and bolster fishing, tribal, and farming communities along the…
At a Bolivian animal-rehab center, volunteers can adopt a rescued jaguar and take it for daily walks on a leash. Brave and compassionate, or just plain stupid? THAYER WALKER discovers that it may be all three. And he's got the scratch marks to prove it.
Douglas Brinkley's biography of Teddy Roosevelt proves we still have a lot to learn from the conservation giant.
When Greg Carr decided to help restore the greatest wildlife park in Mozambique, he didn't just send a check. He traded his suits for shorts and Boston for the savanna. And what he's accomplished in just four years at Gorongosa is one of the unlikeliest—and most hopeful—stories in Africa.
Those people who say that? They're annoying. But, as our man eventually discovers, that doesn't mean they're not on to something.
Seventy percent of the planet is water, but only 1.17 percent—1.63 million square miles—of that is protected. Compare that with the eight million square miles of land set aside and it's clear we have a long way to go. Here's where we should start.
They say you can't go home again—to the strange, remote, threatened South American jungle where your larger-than-life, field-scientist dad discovered an extremely rare, weird-looking species called Lophostoma schulzi. They're probably right. But we did it anyway.
They've got a slight animal-control problem in Delhi, India: Thousands of wild rhesus monkeys, addled by the sprawl that's taking over their habitat, are dropping out of trees to steal food, chug booze, and murder prominent citizens. Did we mention that many of the victims believe these creatures are gods?
MIT's Daniel Nocera has a recipe for taking solar power mainstream. It all starts with a tall glass of water
Cheaper Gore-Tex, cleaner diesel, and five other things George W. Bush got right.
You bought a hybrid. That's swell. Now how about we all get down to business?
Tired of the green-product spin? Here are 11 industry leaders doing their part.
Before her 2005 arrest, eco-saboteur Chelsea Gerlach took part in nine Earth Liberation Front actions, including the 1998 arson that destroyed Vail Mountain’s Two Elk lodge. In an exclusive interview from behind bars, Gerlach talks about life on the run, destruction on behalf of the environment, and why she cooperated with the federal investigators who smashed the ELF.
For his March Out of Bounds column, our man Eric Hansen got up close and sappy with an unlikely group of artists: 50 Leyland Cypress trees. Listen to a podcast version of the story, read by Hansen, and see some of his photos of the trees and their keeper.
For the January, 2007 Outside feature story, “Paradise Pretty Soon,” we floated Alex Tehrani down Gabon’s Djidji river in search of the perfect photographs of the four-year-old Ivindo National Park. Little did we know he’d come back with just as many stories to tell as the article’s writer, Rob Buchanan.
An Imax filmmaker flies into New Orleans, post-Katrina, and comes out with a film on culture, conservation, and rebuilding Louisiana's wetlands
If you count insects, then mosquitoes are the most prolific killers, transmitting diseases that take out at least two million a year. Our own kind is second: In recent decades, we've offed an average of one million of ourselves annually. But if you're talking claws-out, fur-flying, fangs-bared, When Animals Attack…
A team of Japanese scientists has observed and photographed the giant squid in the wild for the first time. Read their story and see photos of the squid here.
Photojournalist Stephen Dupont has made a name for himself photographing people and areas that deal in global change and elements of our world that are disappearing. First Contact Photo Gallery Click here to view Stephen Dupont’s First Contact Photo GalleryStephen Dupont Stephen Dupont His travels and passion…
Looking to rachet up your mojo, sans synthetics? University of Massachusetts explorer in residence Chris Kilham, 52, has spent 25 years traveling the world to study native uses of medicinal plants. Despite having zero formal training in botany, the plucky adventurer and author—known to fans of his herbal guides and…
The Dolores used to be one of the mightiest whitewater rivers in the West. Then politics and dry weather got in the way. But neither drought nor dam nor partisan bickering can stop Mark Sundeen from floating (and walking and driving) the entire course of the Rio de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores.
The recovery he helped bring upon the Hudson has been far more personal for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. than the process of simply cleansing a river. It has washed him of his sins, returning his birthright charm and political pedigree to full shiny view — and leaving onlookers wondering what's next.
In a stunning final letter, Timothy Treadwell speaks out on naysayers, fear, and what he believed was acceptance into the clan of the bear
Famed naturalist Charlie Russell argues that Timothy Treadwell's work was both crucial and sane
A bear expert's risky research ends in disaster. Should anybody get so close to grizzlies?
With their nifty new windmills, tidy techno-homes, and enviro-crusading queen, the Dutch are busy creating the cutest little ecotopia on earth—while stoking a booming hypercapitalist economy. What does tiny Holland know that America is too big and dumb to figure out?
He's a loner, he's lethal, and he's got your scent. Feline phantom, ultimate predator, the cougar has ghosted back into the American wild and your backyard. (Hey, Marge, have you seen the poodle lately?)
As the political controversy over the future of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge reignites, a journey across ANWR's disputed territory explores the realities of a place where wildlife, native traditions, and the search for oil converge in fateful proximity
The world's best tracker of new primate species shares secrets for finding fuzzy little guys in the woods
Dreams of Bengal tigers and visions of imminent extinction led Peter Matthiessen to a predator's last stronghold in the jungles of India. It was a place, the author discovered, where not seeing is believing.
32 YEARS AGO this summer, my pal, the crime novelist Jim Crumley, his overeducated farmer friend from Arkansas, Harold McDuffy, and yours truly hiked six miles to Bowman Lake in Glacier National Park. For someone who had spent most of his life in the desert country of southeastern Oregon, this…
The strangest stuff litters the flood-sloshed banks of the Mississippi River and her tributaries: tires by the hundred, refrigerators, automobiles, messages in a bottle, urine in a bottle, and (yikes!) the occasional ice chest containing a severed horse head. When the going gets gross, the man to call is Chad Pregracke, a crusading voyager in the war against trash.
What's that smell? It's a teeming avian sanctuary—and a sump of troubled waters. It's a mess that we created—and a puzzle we can't solve. It's California's Salton Sea, a hypersaline lake that kills the very life it shelters.
An ardent defender of wilderness reflected on the solace of the mountains and nature in difficult times. He wrote this after 9/11, but the sentiment applies now, too, as we watch the world changing around us.
The Bush administration has a plan to manage the nation's open spaces. But will America buy it?
Close encounters of the bear-human kind are skyrocketing, though actual attacks remain few and far between. Hopefully, new outreach education efforts will keep things that way.
Remembering David Brower, a complex man who took it upon himself to complete a simple task: save the planet
You know the type. They're Martha Stewart's worst nightmare. They're (usually) men of a certain age and outdoor inclination who track in mud, dump wet gear on the carpet, and clean God-knows-what in the kitchen sink. Isn't it beautiful?
Ted Turner and his son Beau aren’t your typical green crusaders—the kid is a hook-and-bullet guy, and dad is hatching plans to sell buffalo burgers as theme food. But together they control 1.8 million acres of prime U.S. ranchland, where they’re unloading a fortune to revive endangered species, revolutionize grazing, and (don’t tell the neig
In these fragile, frigid ecosystems, the phrase tread lightly takes on a whole new meaning
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. camps in the Arctic and asks why big oil can't keep its hands off America's largest patch of wilderness
Who is Barry Clausen and why has his two-bit cloak-and-dagger act made so many radical environmentalists, FBI agents, animal rights activists, and conservative ideologues furious?
IPO sluts, "lifestyle" vintners, and eco-radicals bearing lawsuits. Eroding hillsides, glassy-winged sharpshooters, and an imperiled river with dying steelhead. Napa Valley has them all, and each lends its own bouquet of New Economy hilarity, nose-out-of-joint agrarian rage, and NIMBY intolerance to wine country's unique, full-bodied blend of environmental poli
Will Al Gore's green vision lead him to the Oval Office? Knock on wood.
Is it ever too late to become the caring parent you thought you could be? To find out, one man went in search of his adopted manatee—only to discover the many injustices that humankind has heaped upon these hapless marine mammals. And when Junior is fat, slow, and endangered, family values are nothing more than an easy way to break your heart.
Surrounded by a staggering array of hazardous waste, toxic emissions, chemical pollutants, and lethal military experimentation, the Goshute tribe of Utah decided to do the logical thing and offer up its reservation as a dump for 40,000 metric tons of highly radioactive nuclear fuel. The neighbors are very upset.
Deep in South Africa's interior sprawls Kruger National Park, the crown jewel of game preserves with 2,500 lions, 2,750 rhinos, 8,500 elephants, 30,000 zebras, 100,000 impalas...and 650 miles of boundary wire keeping animals in and poachers out. Welcome to the postmodern Eden, where everyone behaves—or else.
Once, he rode the smoky ridges about the Umpqua River, a pack of baying hounds at his feet, the bawling of the terrified Ursus americanus ringing through the hills. Once, he was undisputed master of the kill. Once, Ray Hillsman slew a thousand bears. And then one man said, No more.
Swing a hammer, light a fuse, and let the dams come tumbling down. So goes the cry these days on American rivers, where vandals of every stripe—enviros and fishermen and interior secretaries, among others—wage battle to uncork the nation's bound-up waters.
In the beginning was the family compound, and it was fine. Then came the oil companies with their wells, and they were foul. And lately have come the shootings, the wrenchings, the bombings—and what's to come of all that, only the prophet knows.
Can you feel it coming? Heat, hail, snow, rain. Wind, drought, flood, pain. Are you tired of waiting? Then hurry to Bangladesh, where the skies have already broken.
