"Widely considered one of the most destructive fishing methods, trawling involves dragging the ocean floor with weighted nets that indiscriminately scoop up everything in their path," writes author Steve Chawkins. These trawlers used to remove thousands of tons of rockfish. Now concerns about overfishing have led to increasingly tight restrictions on how much fish can be pulled from the sea. The Nature Conservancy has purchased four of these big trawlers based in Morro Bay, California, and the permits that allowed them to operate. The trawlers will "either be converted to less disruptive seagoing uses or be scrapped," writes Chawkins. "The group hopes to get government approval to lease some of its newly acquired fishing rights to locals willing to use traps and other 'selective' gear to snag such pricey prey as black cod."

"Developed as an insecticide in 1939, DDT was popular because it killed insects but wasn't acutely poisonous to people or animals. But in the 1950s, it was accumulating in food chains, nearly wiping out eagles and other birds," writes author Marla Cone. All uses of DDT ended in the U.S. in 1972, but were still allowed in Mexico on farms until 1995 and for mosquito control until 2000. Now a new study shows that babies and toddlers of women who recently emigrated from Mexico to the Salinas Valley have neurological effects that are severe enough in some cases to slow the mental and physical development. "For every tenfold rise in DDT exposure," writes Cones, "the children's scores on mental tests dropped 2 to 3 points. Their motor skills were also reduced." The lower scores indicate a developmental delay and potential learning disability, including memory and problem-solving skills.

"Over the years, the world fleet of cargo vessels has emerged as a leading source of sulfur oxides, particulates and nitrogen oxides. Many ships emit as much exhaust as 12,000 cars," writes author Dan Weikel. "The emissions have been linked to global warming, respiratory illnesses and premature death." The International Maritime Organization and individual ports, such as Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, are working on plans to strengthen outdated emission standards for cargo vessels in an effort to improve air quality. "Almost 5,800 ships called at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach last year, releasing roughly 14,000 tons of air pollutants," writes Weikel. The International Maritime Organization has 166 member nations and works on a consensus basis, which can result in delays in ratification of standards and lower standards. Los Angeles and Long Beach are proposing a $2 billion, five-year plan to require international cargo ships to use low-sulfur fuel within 20 nautical miles of local ports and cut nitrogen oxide emissions by 45 percent.

A broad class of pesticides that has become the dominant home and garden bug killer, pyrethroids, has been found to be deadly to aquatic life at very low concentrations. In August California "will notify manufacturers of pyrethroid insecticides that they must share data on their products or those products will be banned from sale in California," writes author Matt Weiser. "The data will drive a regulatory review that could result in use restrictions or a ban on specific products." This regulation effort will involve 600 consumer products sold in hardware stores, garden centers, and pet stores that are used in fertilizers spread on lawns and in some pet soaps and shampoos. Since consumer use is not regulated, it is difficult to track, but studies suggest that residential applications far exceed commercial and farm use.

Forget about the line "To understand and protect our home planet ... as only NASA can." As of February, Andrew C. Revkin reports, NASA deleted the phrase from its mission statement, emphasizing instead the agency's mission "to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research." A spokesperson tells Revkin the new wording better squares with President Bush's goal of human flights to the moon and Mars. He writes that the shift doesn't sit well with "many NASA scientists" who say the phrase was useful in shaping and executing research priorities for issues such as climate change. One says the shift in mission terminology makes it harder to justify the agency's atmospheric chemistry work. Revkin writes that the change "was made at NASA headquarters without consulting the agency's 19,000 employees or informing them ahead of time," and that the change "has only recently registered with NASA employees." A NASA spokesperson tells Revkin that the change reflects Administrator Michael D. Griffin's philosophy that "strategic planning comes from headquarters down." Revkin says NASA climate scientist (par excellence?) James E. Hansen used the "understand and protect" language repeatedly in explaining his own work. "Dr. Hansen said the change might reflect White House eagerness to shift the spotlight away from global warming," Revkin writes. "They prefer that NASA work on something that's not causing them a problem," Hansen says.

Foreign affairs specialist Doug Struck travels to Columbus, Ohio, and the ice core labs of expert Lonnie G. Thompson and writes that "the climate system has exceeded a critical threshold," with a full retreat and melting of tropical-zone glaciers "in the near future." Struck quotes the near-legendary Thompson: "I think the temperature will continue to rise, the glaciers will continue to melt. Sea levels will continue to rise. I think there is a good indication now that the magnitude of severe storms will rise." He characterizes warming in the high mountains and tropics as "unprecedented for at least two millennia." Seeking reaction to Thompson's research, Struck quotes Gavin Schmidt, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, as saying, "You would have to put that argument as more intriguing rather than definitive. There are a number of issues in the tropical ice cores that are problematic for dating things 4,000 to 5,000 years ago."

Former Time magazine environment writer Eugene Linden cautions that "many of the predicted changes have begun, and they already affect our health and pocketbooks. We ignore them at our peril." Linden's closing paragraph: "Past civilizations had no way to know that climates could change. We do. But if we are to avert disaster, we have to act on our knowledge, and we haven't done that yet."