A couple days back I posted on an amazing graph of the drop-off of life spans in Africa. Bona fide Africa expert Ethan Zuckerman has a long post up, clarifying and expanding on the graph. It turns out that the graph is perhaps a tad misleading, as it chooses precisely those countries where AIDS has hit the hardest. Of course Ethan doesn't mean to minimize what is an epic tragedy, but he does provide a more balanced picture of what's happening on the continent. Give it a read.

Via WC, a study by the International Fund for Agricultural Development concludes that organic farming offers farmers in developing countries higher earnings and a better standard of living. The higher earnings come from organic product being worth more (duh), and the better standard of living comes from the higher earnings and the not being poisoned with herbicides and pesticides. I was looking around in there for some reason why the conclusions wouldn't transfer straightforwardly to small farmers in developed countries. The answer seems to lie mainly in transition costs -- since developing world farmers don't really use expensive technologies and …

I took two tidbits away from this interesting Clint Wilder piece on framing clean energy (via Sustainablog). Here's the first: In opinion research conducted last year in Rhode Island, the Clean Energy States Alliance and marketing consultancy SmartPower found that the label of "clean" energy had a much more positive public reception than "green" (too political), "renewable" (too niche), or "alternative" (too much of an implication that its users must adopt a new lifestyle). These kinds of things are small but important to know for everybody who writes or talks about environmental issues. Little bits of repetitive framing add up. …

Do check out CommonBits, a cool site set up by Grist friend Jeff Reifman to distribute alternative media files (videos, PDFs, etc.). You can download most stuff directly, or via bittorrent, and you can set up RSS feeds for a variety of different tags, to keep up on what's being posted. Great, great idea. I hope it takes off.

I appreciate the sentiment that Jon expresses here. I'm sure he'd agree that there's no single "right question," so I guess we need to ask: Right for what purpose? The idea that corporations have the legal status of individuals is, in the standard lefty worldview, anathema. It's a complicated issue, though, and I've heard good arguments on both sides. At the Democratic caucus meeting in my district last year, there was a proposal from the Kucinich crowd to nominate "repeal corporate personhood" as a plank in the party's platform. A couple, both of whom I believe were lawyers who had …

I was going to leave this as a comment on Katharine's post, but I run this joint, so why not take advantage? I used to completely agree with Katharine (and commenter Mike) that tactics like PETA's are counter-productive. In fact, I once wrote a post on it. Why do they always make the most extreme statement (wearing fur is like being a Nazi) and champion the most obscure causes (fish have feelings)? Don't they have enough legitimate, mainstream issues -- like, say, the horrific conditions at huge mega-dairies -- to be a sober voice at the table with the grown-ups? …

Two stories on Bush's new EPA guy Steve Johnson -- in the L.A. Times and the Christian Science Monitor -- confirm what was basically my gut reaction when I heard about him. It seems the Bushies have figured out that there's no margin in having a high-profile figure in charge of EPA. It's the president who sets the course for policy; all the EPA administrator needs to do is keep the trains running on time, stay on board, and otherwise stay out of the way. Whitman was a politician, ultimately concerned with positioning herself for bigger things in the future …

I would follow Elizabeth in recommending this Idaho Statesman story, from which we learn that while 75% of Americans consider themselves green consumers, only 10% actually, you know, buy green stuff consistently. While it might be tempting to raise yet another hue and cry about American hypocrisy (zzz...), I would also endorse Elizabeth's conclusion that this is good news. The percentage of people willing to sacrifice, pay more, research, go out of their way, etc. is always going to be small. However, if businesses make eco-friendly products easy to identify, easy to find, and easy to buy, there's an enormous …

Well Nike Considered certainly has made a splash -- in the blogosphere at least. I was dismayed to find from this ID Fuel post that "the most innovative idea is their incorporation of a woven hemp-polyester upper." This basket-like tongue, based on one of their earlier Presto technologies, the Air Woven, allows material to be used as it is needed, rather than creating scrap leather by cutting out complicated patterns. As an added bonus, the shoes have a very forgiving fit, so people with high arches, or non-so-average bones won't be uncomfortable. And even better, when varying color lacing is …

I missed this last week, but apparently Virginia has followed Oregon in nixing some strong limitations on development. Times are tough for the Slow (read: sane) Growth crowd. (via Pat Burns) Update [2005-3-7 11:16:15 by Dave Roberts]: And more from Jon Christensen, who also points to a Joel Kotkin article in Architecture Magazine arguing that urban planners need to get over their aversion to suburbs and start helping them become more livable, because like it or not, suburbs are the future. Ugh. Update [2005-3-7 11:32:30 by Dave Roberts]: I suppose I should add, for those of you too lazy to …