natural resources defense council

People Are So Annoying That Animals Are Becoming More Nocturnal

People Are So Annoying That Animals Are Becoming More Nocturnal

By Jason Bittel It’s official: Animals around the world are sick of our sh . . . enanigans. After looking at 62 mammal species on six continents, a recent study published in Science found that 83 percent of these species are doing more and more of their business in the dark rather than deal with […]

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    Without Bees, the Foods We Love Will Be Lost

    Without Bees, the Foods We Love Will Be Lost

    Below is a transcript of the video. Rebecca Riley, senior attorney, NRDC: Right now, we’re in a real crisis when it comes to bees. Every year, about a third of our honeybee colonies collapse. And the 4,000 native bee species in the United States suffer from those same threats that honeybees do. Those are species […]

    The Home Depot Will Be Third Major U.S. Retailer to Ban Deadly Paint Strippers

    The Home Depot Will Be Third Major U.S. Retailer to Ban Deadly Paint Strippers

    The world’s largest home improvement retailer, The Home Depot, announced Tuesday that it will phase out the use of the toxic chemicals methylene chloride and N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) in its paint removal products by the end of this year. The company, which operates more than 2,200 stores in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, is the third […]

    Major Coal-Fired Power Plant in Washington to Go Solar

    Major Coal-Fired Power Plant in Washington to Go Solar

    By Starre Vartan It was once Washington state’s largest coal pit, a terraced, open-to-the-sky strip mine, five miles from the city of Centralia and halfway between Seattle and Portland, Oregon. Today, the coal beds are quiet and blanketed in green, but an adjacent TransAlta power plant with three tall stacks still churns out electricity the […]

    Oregon Has a Poaching Problem—and a Force to Reckon With It

    Oregon Has a Poaching Problem—and a Force to Reckon With It

    By Becca Cudmore “Oregon State Police, this is Andrew,” said the dispatcher covering Oregon’s wildlife TIP (Turn In Poachers) line. It was mid-May, and Andrew Tuttle was prepared to answer a call on the latest deer wandering around with an arrow through her skull, or possibly a dynamited trout. (Salmon and steelhead were running upriver […]

    What’s Happening to the North Atlantic Right Whale Is Just Plain Wrong

    What’s Happening to the North Atlantic Right Whale Is Just Plain Wrong

    By Jason Bittel Imagine if safari-goers in Africa came upon an elephant trudging through the brush covered in a tangle of ropes and netting. What if, on closer inspection, they found that the animal’s mouth was blocked, preventing it from eating, or that lengths of rope had coiled around and cut into its legs, making […]

    Sculptures Under the Sea—and on the Front Lines of Climate Change

    Sculptures Under the Sea—and on the Front Lines of Climate Change

    By Patrick Rogers Famous for its turquoise waters and spectacularly diverse animal and plant life, the Maldives also bears the unwelcome distinction of being the country most vulnerable to rising sea levels. The island chain in the Indian Ocean is the flattest nation on earth, with most of its land lying less than five feet […]

    Oil Hunt Damages Everglades’ Big Cypress National Preserve

    Oil Hunt Damages Everglades’ Big Cypress National Preserve

    By Alison Kelly New oil development has no place in sensitive wetland habitats in the Florida Everglades. The Burnett Oil Company, based in Texas, claimed it could explore for oil in the Big Cypress National Preserve with no significant, long-term impacts to sensitive wetlands. But these claims have been refuted, as Burnett Oil has caused […]

    The Pork Industry’s Role in the Future of Modern Medicine

    The Pork Industry’s Role in the Future of Modern Medicine

    By David Wallinga, MD More than a century ago, my grandfather left his family’s farm in Sioux Center, Iowa to study medicine, and later to set up practice in St. Paul, MN—which was founded as Pig’s Eye, of course. To my Gramps, they must have seemed like very separate worlds. The farm, where people still […]