Once the fourth largest inland sea in the world, Central Asia's Aral Sea is drying up rapidly and is likely to all but disappear in as few as 15 years, according to a new study by Moscow's Shirshov Institute of Oceanology. Since the 1960s, the sea has been depleted by the damming of the main rivers that feed it; it is now just a quarter of the size it was a half-century ago and has broken into two parts, the North Aral Sea and the South Aral Sea. The latter has been basically abandoned, because the cost of restoring it …

Dear Umbra, I shudder at the triviality of the question, but so far nobody I've asked has been able to provide a satisfying answer. So here it is: Is chewing gum biodegradable? Can I spit it on the compost instead of sticking it under the chair? Would green stalks sprout from the gum-spot-riddled sidewalks if we didn't trod them down? I hope you can finally reveal the secret of what is the core of the matter, besides spearmint and sweetener. BirgitFrankfurt, Germany Dearest Birgit, Shudder only in repulsion. I can indeed reveal the secret: The answers to your questions are …

Across the Atlantic, another fracas is brewing over genetically modified foods. Yesterday protesters hit the streets in Sacramento, Calif., to rally against GM technology, one day before the start of a large international agricultural conference that is bringing together agriculture ministers from more than 100 countries and reps from biotechnology and agribusiness corporations. Family farmers, chefs, anti-globalization activists, and others donned butterfly wings, chef hats, and tomato costumes and waved signs to make their point. "We're here to make a stand against genetically modified food and agribusiness making a profit off us," said Kate Randolph, one of a contingent of …

In 2001, Eric Schlosser published Fast Food Nation -- an expose of America's increasingly consolidated and industrialized food system, and how that system contributes to a whole range of societal ills, from obesity and resistance to antibiotics to urban sprawl, habitat destruction, and poor labor conditions. The book was a smashing success -- 66 weeks and running on the New York Times bestseller list -- and it captured the nation's attention in a way no book about food has since Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, the 1906 classic about the Chicago meatpacking industry. In a new afterword to Fast Food Nation's …

Some years ago, I was part of a group that set out to create a community where we could work toward living with less impact on the environment. One of the first steps we took was to write down a list of principles to guide us as we worked to turn our vision into reality. At the top of the list were "community" and "sustainability." (The others, if you're curious, were "unity," "beauty," and "equity.") The village people: Cobb Hill community members. Photo: Cobb Hill Cohousing. As I was one of the chief drafters of these principles, I took them …

Members of Brazil's Landless Peasant Movement occupied a test farm owned by biotechnology giant Monsanto last week, in a bid to expel the company and establish an organic farm on the site instead. The protestors say neither the people nor the government of the Brazilian state of Parana support genetically modified (GM) crops, such as the transgenic soybeans and corn grown on the Monsanto test site. Brazil allows experimental planting of transgenic crops but has banned commercial planting since 1998. Nonetheless, Monsanto's Roundup Ready GM soy enjoys a thriving black market, with as much as 30 percent of the nation's …

Dear Umbra, I want to quit smoking. As if the risks to my health weren't enough, could you help out by twisting that knife of guilt into my tree-hugging heart and give me some environmental reasons to stop supporting the tobacco industry? Cough, wheeze, ElaineSaint John, New Brunswick, Canada Dearest Elaine, I don't care whether you smoke or not. In fact, I think anti-smoking hype is often thinly disguised class warfare and would be best put to use as a template to create, say, anti-SUV hype or anti-pesticide-laden-suburban-lawn hype. Still, I hear your pain, and if you want me to …

Dear Umbra, I don't know if you'll have time to answer this question, but while purchasing 8th Continent soymilk my husband noticed that there was Solae in it. After some research on the Internet, we discovered that Solae is made by DuPont and is a genetically engineered soybean, but we were unable to find anything negative about it. Do you know anything about Solae and if it is dangerous? Sincerely, Heather AnneSacramento, Calif. Dearest Heather Anne, Hello, and welcome to my little corner of the Internet, where I have nothing but time to answer your questions. (If I use the …

Hi Umbra, I don't know if the same thing has happened in the U.S, but here in Canada the milk industry has undergone a massive shift to using different containers. Once, you could get plastic jugs or cardboard cartons with fold-back lids or plastic bags. But now, the most commonly available container is a revised carton. It has a plastic spout, as if pouring with the other kind were too hard. Can you tell me which of the containers has the least impact on the environment? Thanks, JessicaCreemore, Ontario, Canada Dearest Jessica, I hope you've been following our column long …

The state of South Dakota is leading the nation in the Partners for Fish and Wildlife project, a federal conservation program designed to help farmers and ranchers reduce their negative impact on native prairie ecosystems. Conversion of wild grasslands to croplands is a major environmental problem in South Dakota and other prairies states. Under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife program, farmers and ranchers work to preserve habitat on their lands by planting native grasses and creating grazing rotations that minimize ecosystem damage; in exchange, the federal government pays them for fences and grass seed. Last year, some 160 South Dakota …