Scientists Urge People to Stop Feeding the Birds – “Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.” — Albert Schweitzer By Glynn Wilson – CATOCTIN MOUNTAIN, Md. — In 1962, before President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, he set up a special…
Endangered Species
Biden Administration Brings Back Endangered Species Protections Gutted Under Trump
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a continuing series of executive actions to reverse damaging anti-environment policies of the Trump administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service under President Joe Biden announced new plans this week to re-strengthen the Endangered Species Act, the law and a series…
Setting the Record Straight: The National Park Service is Not Allowing the Hunting of Black Bears Infected with Mange
The American Public’s Concern for the Environment is A Cause for Worry
Water Pollution Remains the Top Environmental Concern in the U.S. – Public Opinion Analysis – By Glynn Wilson – The American public is not worried enough about the state of the natural environment to save themselves or the world. That’s not the headline on the latest Gallup poll reporting concern for environmental issues in the…
American Bald Eagle Population Soars Back From Near Extinction
Glynn Wilson – At a time of so much bad news for humans on planet Earth and in the United States, it might be a good thing to take a moment to consider a little good news from science and nature: The conservation success story of the American bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus). Populations of the…
Toxic Coal Ash is Back on the Agenda as an Environmental Issue of Our Time
Editor’s Note: For the past five years, while the New American Journal has continued to keep up with some major stories related to the natural environment such as the latest news on global warming and climate change, our priorities have tended to focus largely on coverage of national science and public affairs, and some state…
Attorneys General Support Legal Challenge of Permit for Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline
By Glynn Wilson – A coalition of 12 attorneys general around the country have filed friend of the court briefs in support of a federal lawsuit by environmental groups challenging the legality of the Trump administration’s permit for the Keystone XL pipeline transporting Canadian tar sands oil into the United States and across the American…
Wild Turkeys Make a Comeback in North America
By Glynn Wilson – Beginning around the time of the first Thanksgiving harvest feast in North America in the 1620s, European settlers almost wiped out native wild turkeys on the continent by the early-20th century. Conservation efforts since the 1970s, however, have been successful, and the population has made a comeback to an estimated 7…
On Earth Day 2020, Future Human Prognosis Looks Cloudy
By Glynn Wilson – On the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, the 10th anniversary of the BP oil disaster, and a couple of months into the coronavirus pandemic and economic collapse, I’m not feeling so well or very optimistic about the future of human life on planet Earth. It’s similar to how I feel about…
Earth Day: A Decade Later, Our Oceans and Wildlife Still at Risk
By Michele Harmon – Ten years ago this month, our community experienced the worst environmental disaster in the history of our country. In fact, the spill was 30 percent larger than originally calculated, and deadlier. Below the surface, “invisible oil” was hidden from view of satellites that were intended to capture the extent of the…
U.S. Senate Unanimously Passes Conservation Bills in Bipartisan Vote
By Glynn Wilson – While the Trump administration continues to do the bidding of fossil fuel companies by proposing to gut the National Environmental Policy Act, with little fanfare and in bipartisan fashion the United States Senate unanimously passed a package of bills this week called America’s Conservation Enhancement Act (ACE) to expand federal funding…
Thirty States and Local Governments File Motion in Federal Court to Intervene in Lawsuits and Defend EPA’s Authority to Limit Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Dirty, Coal-Fired Power Plants
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Maryland’s attorney general filed a motion in federal court on Tuesday joining 30 states and local governments in an attempt to intervene with the federal government to defend the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to establish air emission limits on greenhouse gases from power plants and other industrial sources…
Millions of People Take to the Streets to Protest Lack of Government Action to Address Global Warming in Climate Strike
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — An estimated four million people around the world walked off the job, skipped school and joined marches and rallies on Friday to protest inadequate government action to address climate change due to global warming from the burning of fossil fuels in what youth organizers called a Climate Strike.…
National Park Service Works to Save Mulberry ‘Witness Tree’ by the Washington Monument
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – It was a cold day in the nation’s capital on February 21, 1885 when the Washington Monument was finally dedicated on the National Mall after decades of fits and starts and problems finding matching stones and money to build it, according to the National Park Service, and there…
‘Ominous’ UN Report Warns Human Activity Has Pushed One Million Plant and Animal Species to Brink of Extinction
“Nature is collapsing around us and it’s a real wake-up call to humanity.” By Jake Johnson – A United Nations report described as the most authoritative and comprehensive assessment of global biodiversity ever published found that human exploitation of the natural world has pushed a million plant and animal species to the brink of extinction…
Climacide — Survival Rebranding
By David Underhill – A 15-year old Swedish girl bitch-slapped the world’s representatives at the recent climate conference in Poland. She stood before them and called them frauds and fakers, while they sat in limp silence. She said they’d had their chances to do something effective about the climate crisis, and they had failed. It…
The DNA Industry and the Disappearing Indian: DNA, Race and Native Rights
Channeling Benjamin Franklin’s Thoughts on Donald Trump’s ‘War on Science’
By Glynn Wilson – PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — When Benjamin Franklin founded the American Philosophical Society in 1743, 33 years before he signed the Declaration of Independence as a member of the Continental Congress, he recognized the need for an organization that would bring together the brightest thinkers of the day to share their scientific experiments…
It’s Open Season on Academic Science in the Trump Era
Staff report… Most people think university professors – especially those with tenure – are safe from political interference in their research fields. They would be wrong – especially in state universities, according to a recent story just out from Washington State. Washington’s leading expert on wolves, Professor Rob Wielgus, learned this lesson the hard way…
Watercress Darter Habitat Restoration Project Underway on Village Creek
By Glynn Wilson – BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — It only took 10 years after the human-caused environmental disaster, but a habitat restoration project for the endangered watercress darter along Village Creek in Roebuck Springs is finally underway and should be completed by the summer of 2018, according to an announcement just out from the non-profit Freshwater…