For 5,000 years, Spain’s mineral riches created cash economies and global pollution. A shorter version was published in Archaeology. AQUILINO DELGADO DOMÍNGUEZ UNLOCKS the ornamental metal door and waves me inside the warehouse of the Riotinto Mining Museum in southwestern Spain. He makes a beeline to a cardboard box sitting on a waist-high table. Inside is […]
A Human Disaster
Gushing pipes, surface slicks, and oiled pelicans—the visible impact of the BP spill was all too apparent. But the invisible toll on people may be every bit as pernicious. An interview with Steve Picou. Originally published in OnEarth. In June, when oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill washed up on Orange Beach, Alabama, 400 yards from […]
Crude Awakening
Right here in North America could lie the answer to our energy needs. But at what cost? Mining the tar sands of Alberta threatens to strip the world’s largest intact forest of its ability to hold carbon and to wipe out the breeding grounds for millions of birds. Originally published in Audubon. ON A BREEZY JULY […]
Pragmatic Problem Solver
Tim Profeta, comfortable among scholars and respected within Capitol culture, brings a sure hand to the delicate task of inserting good environmental research into the national legislative discourse. Originally published in Duke Magazine. TIM PROFETA, DIRECTOR OF DUKE UNIVERSITY’S Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, arrives one April morning at the Capitol Hill office of a Republican senator […]
Work Plan
Maytag’s departure left a small Iowa town’s economy reeling. Today, however, workers are building wind machines instead of washing machines, and validating studies about the enormous potential of green-collar jobs. Originally published in Audubon. AT THE EDGE OF A CORNFIELD, inside a sprawling, low-slung brown building, a Midwestern town’s dying economy is humming back to life. Newton, […]
Tomorrow’s wars
An interview with Sherri Goodman about climate change and military readiness Originally published in On Earth. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE director, Dennis Blair, warned the Senate in February of a growing threat to global security. Climate change, he said, could affect “domestic stability in a number of key states, the opening of new sea lanes and […]
Delta Blues
Drinking water for 23 million Californians. Lifeblood of our farm economy. Why it’s so vital to save this Sacramento delta. Originally published in On Earth. ON THIS BRISK, CLOUDLESS DAY, Tom Zuckerman and I are driving to his duck-hunting club on Rindge Tract, one of the low-slung rural islands that form the nucleus of California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin […]
The Wal-Mart Effect
By stocking its shelves with inexpensive organic foods, the world’s largest retailer is about to prove that what’s good for the company is good for the planet and consumers. Or is it? Originally published in Audubon. SEVERAL TIMES A WEEK, A BLUE TRUCK with a stainless steel collection tank drives up a newly blacktopped road in Guilford, […]
When Is a Corporation Like a Freed Slave?
In rural Pennsylvania, township supervisors battling sewage sludge and hog manure stumble up against one of the biggest mysteries in constitutional law. Originally published in Mother Jones. LICKING TOWNSHIP, PENNSYLVANIA, IS A ROLLING SWATH of soybean fields and pastures in Clarion County, two hours northeast of Pittsburgh, with 500 residents and quite a few more cattle. Drive […]
Deadly Dependence
The South’s economic reliance on military bases has left a toxic legacy throughout the region. Originally published in Creative Loafing and The Weekly Planet. ON A SUMMER DAY THREE YEARS AGO, Elijah Robinson was digging in the yard of his brand-new patio home in Columbia, S.C., when an unexpected sensation washed over him. Even though he was covered in […]
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