The picnic table, the park bench and the boardwalk look like wood, but they are actually made from plastic. Impervious to water, salt, oil, chemicals, and insects, the building material comes from chipped and melted milk jugs and detergent bottles. This new use for high-density polyethylene is making profits for outdoor furniture manufacturers and checkingContinue reading “Looks Like Wood”
Author Archives: admin
Forest Of Toyota
A group of researchers at Japan’s largest car manufacturer are concentrating on designer trees rather than fuel efficiency. This odd turn for Toyota is an effort to develop a new tree with a ravenous appetite for the noxious gases produced by gasoline-powered automobile engines. Since 1991, the company has been working on biology- based methodsContinue reading “Forest Of Toyota”
Bilge Pill
What We Did in Virginia
From January 1994 to January 1998, I was Secretary of Natural Resources for the Commonwealth of Virginia in the Republican administration of Governor George Allen. My goal was to change the paradigm that has governed environmental programs from the “fearsome master” approach to the “helpful servant” approach. I intended to do this by decentralizingContinue reading “What We Did in Virginia”
Politics-Green But Dirty
Businesses routinely lobby to avoid heavy burdens from government regulations. But some businesses lobby in favor of regulations that give them a market edge. Environmental regulations are riddled with provisions that are less about saving the planet than about helping a particular industry or special interest. The latest example comes from a business group thatContinue reading “Politics-Green But Dirty”
To Preserve It, Buy It
Tacoma News Tribune August 13, 1998 By Matthew Brown and Jane S. Shaw Chaining yourself to a tree in the forest just doesn’t work any more. Environmentalists who want to save forests have found a less confrontational way to achieve their goals–and a more effective one, too. They reach for their checkbooks. Abandoning court battlesContinue reading “To Preserve It, Buy It”
Rangers On Tour
While ecotourism has been touted as a way to save everything from tigers to sea turtles, it might also prove an economic boon to the financially beleaguered U.S. Forest Service. Heritage Expeditions is part of the user-fee demonstration program that allows federal land management agencies to charge fees for recreation on public lands. A recentContinue reading “Rangers On Tour”
Make Forest Service Pay Its Own Way
Rocky Mountain NewsJune 7, 1998 By Terry L. Anderson The threat of budget cuts for the Forest Service is some of the best fiscal and environmental news yet out of this congress. Angered by years of declining timber sales, Western conservatives are threatening to wield the budget ax. The net result could be a breathContinue reading “Make Forest Service Pay Its Own Way”
Common-Law Protection
Unless you are well into middle age or were a precocious student, you probably have little memory of the United States without the Environmental Protection Agency and the host of federal statutes it implements. You may not be aware of the long history of environmental controls through common-law protections. (Common law is the term weContinue reading “Common-Law Protection”
Light Truck Lessons
Over the last two decades, Americans’ driving experience has been transformed by the proliferation of light trucks–vans, minivans, pickup trucks, and sport utility vehicles. Recently, news reports have castigated these trucks–which weigh about 1,000 pounds more than cars–as a menace on the nation’s highways, especially in car-truck collisions. What few realize is that, according toContinue reading “Light Truck Lessons”