There's a desert in north-central Chile that receives less than six inches of rain a year. Right in the middle of it is a lush mountain forest that is dense with trees, bromeliads, ferns, and mosses.
We ecologists take a lot of flack for always having depressing news to report. It's not often we get to say there is good news on the environmental front, but those of us concerned with air pollution have certainly had reasons to smile this summer.
Several members of Congress and presidential hopefuls have proposed rolling back the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate with the Clean Air and Clean Water acts as a solution to our woes.
There was some good news on the environment last week. In the 20-state area that participates in a cap-and-trade program to reduce emissions of nitric oxide (NOx) from power plants, the emissions declined 32 percent from 1997 to 2005.
