The modern world threatens the existence of a small group of our own species.

Multinational mining interests, illegal logging, and slash-and-burn agriculture are among the many threats to the fragile ecosystems of South America’s rain forests. Efforts to protect them often cite the important role of rain forests as a preserve of plant and animal biodiversity or focus on their importance as the “lungs of the world.”

The energy policy of the future should be sung to the tune of “Here Comes the Sun.”

Events out of Japan persist in an irradiated gloom. The disaster unfolding in Fukushima Daiichi represents a level of calamity for which adjectives have yet to be invented. It’s quite possible that in the end, in a replay of the Chernobyl disaster, areas around the plant may not be suitable again for human habitation.

A group of young people in the Bronx finds that by beautifying an old eyesore, they’ve unleashed a desire to serve their community.

David Shuffler walks through the park that he helped build in the South Bronx on his way to work.

Grass and young trees line his path through Concrete Plant Park, named after the factory that was once on the site. Some of the old factory structures remain—but they’ve been transformed into public art.

It’s time to get the petroleum monkey off our backs.

Hello, my name is Dan, and I’m addicted to oil.

I recently looked around me to catalog all the things made from oil. The plastics in and of themselves were almost too numerous to count: milk and juice bottles, plastic cups and plates, office chair legs and arms, computer keys and appliance shells, bags and assorted containers, the car dashboard, the land-line and cell phones, plastic folders, files, notebooks, and even many of the fabrics that make up my clothing. The plastics list is endless.