How the Pine Beetle is Destroying Colorado Forests | Newsweek Environment

The Ambassador's Jewels
Eleanor Clift 9/28/2009 12:00:00 AM
The Angry Evolutionist
9/25/2009 12:00:00 AM
Creationists are deeply enamored of the fossil record, because they have been taught (by each other) to repeat, over and over, the mantra that it is full of "gaps": "Show me your 'intermediates!' " They fondly (very fondly) imagine that these "gaps" are an embarrassment to evolutionists. Actually, we are lucky to have any fossils at all, let alone the massive numbers that we now do have to document evolutionary history—large numbers of which, by any standards, constitute beautiful "intermediates." We don't need fossils in order to demonstrate that evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution would be entirely secure even if not a single corpse had ever fossilized. It is a bonus that we do actually have rich seams of fossils to mine, and more are discovered every day. The fossil evidence for evolution in many major animal groups is wonderfully strong. Nevertheless there are, of course, gaps, and creationists love them obsessively.
Lock, Stock, and Barrel
Nick Foulkes 9/5/2009 12:00:00 AM
Autumn is the "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" and—as John Keats omitted to mention—the sound of shotguns and the thud of birds falling to the ground. From Aug. 12, the date on which grouse come into season, until the beginning of February, which sees the end of the partridge and pheasant seasons, the rituals of game-bird shooting play themselves out in Britain as they have more or less for centuries.
The Penalty for Saving
8/15/2009 12:00:00 AM
Remember the fable of the hardworking ant and the irresponsible, fun-loving grasshopper? The fable ends with the grasshopper starving, while the industrious ant has saved enough to survive the winter snug and well fed. The moral of the global recession, however, is that real life does not reward savers the way Aesop did. The U.S. and other grasshopper economies may be hurting, but the high-saving ant economies like Japan and Germany are on life support. The OECD expects the U.S. to contract by 2.8 percent this year and Britain by 4.3 percent. Shocking performances—until you compare them with Japan, which is expected to shrink by 6.8 percent this year, and Germany, which is expected to shrink by 6.1 percent.
Birds vs. Environmentalists?
Christina Gillham 8/13/2009 12:00:00 AM
In Wyoming, it's the sage grouse. In Colorado, it's the lesser prairie chicken. In the Northwest, it's the Washington ground squirrel. Across the country, a growing number of species are finding themselves at the epicenter of a new battle being waged by environmentalists and developers. The issue—species being threatened by encroaching human development—is nothing new, of course. What is new? The encroachers aren't the usual suspects—say, a sprawling McMansion community developer—but the environmentally friendly wind-energy industry.
The Search for Sanctuary: Orphan Apes
8/1/2009 12:00:00 AM
A hundred or so orangutans have just returned from a day at "forest school," where they learn to find food, use tools and fear snakes. Assembled on a lawn, they act much like any group of kids at recess—congregating in small groups, clocking each other over the head, holding hands, turning somersaults and adroitly climbing a jungle gym. These apes are orphans, having lost their forest homes to palm-oil plantations and their mothers to poachers who sell the babies to an illegal pet trade. A few still bear the marks etched into their necks from the months or years they spent in chains. The staff at the Nyaru Menteng orangutan sanctuary, in Central Kalimantan on the Indonesian side of Borneo, is painstakingly raising the apes, acting as surrogates for orangutan mothers who rear their young for up to eight years. Once they're old enough and wise enough to survive on their own, the apes move to islands that serve as halfway houses until the animals can be placed back into the jungle.