“The gray bat is being done in by cave visitors,” reports the Nature Conservancy in its annual “Fortunate 500” briefing on rare and endangered species and ecosystems protected, at least in part, during the past year. Since the bats huddle together to conserve warmth over the winter, “a single human disturbance during winter hibernation can cost a bat up to 30 days’ worth of energy and threaten it with starvation.” The conservancy has acquired 185 acres along the Lower Cache River in far southern Illinois to help protect the species from dropping below the necessary numbers to survive.
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Waste Management doesn’t make money on its recycling business–the largest in the country–reports Brian Bremner in Business Week (March 5). But it is “working as a sort of loss leader to pull in business for [the Oak Brook firm’s] landfill operations, which boast a pretax profit margin of 20%.” Some of those landfill profits now find their way as grants to environmental groups such as the National Wildlife Federation and National Audubon Society (In These Times, February 14-20) despite the fact that Waste Management was the firm most often charged with toxic-waste violations during the 1980s.
“By the time I see them, most of my patients have smoked too much, drunk too much, taken too many drugs, eaten a terrible diet and neglected their hypertension and diabetes,” says Mount Sinai Hospital chief cardiologist Dr. David Lubell, in the hospital’s 1989 annual report. “Our technology is still useful to these people– often even dramatically–but…. there is no quick fix, particularly in our environment, where poor people are neglected and abused healthwise.”
Selling out. According to Investing for a Better World (January 15): “Carme, a personal care company whose Mill Creek, Sleepy Hollow, and Jojoba Farms brands are known as ‘cruelty free’ products not tested on animals, has agreed to be sold to International Research and Development Corporation, a firm that conducts tests on animals for drug, agricultural, medical and chemical companies.” Have a nice day.
