On the money. California unveiled the design on its state quarter last week: a picture of John Muir, an image of Half Dome. It's an apt representation of American environmentalism at the moment -- rich in history, but not worth much at present. Modern environmentalism can fairly be described as an American invention. It got its rhetoric from John Muir, its fighting savvy from David Brower, its sense of the world from Rachel Carson, and its institutional framework from the Congress of the Nixon years, which bowed before the loud will of the American people in the years after Earth …

Dear Umbra, I've been Googling all over to find a place where I can recycle old CD cases, to no avail. I'm moving soon and would really like to find an environmentally safe way to dispose of these things. Do you know of any place they can be dropped off, or any other alternatives? MelissaEdgewater, N.J. Dearest Melissa, Here's an answer not just for you, but for all those readers who write in with insanely specific recycling problems: If you've called your municipal recycling experts and Googled all over the place, consider that you've done your best and call it …

Dear Umbra, So I was sitting there at lunch, eating my crackers, when I spied a recycling symbol and was confused. What is "pre-consumer" content? I mean, if the label is true ("carton made from 100 percent recycled paperboard -- minimum 35 percent post-consumer content"), what is the other 65 percent? And what is paperboard? KevinLaurel, Md. Dearest Kevin, Pre-consumer content is the stuff picked up from the cutting-room floor and recycled into new paper products. Paper that was wrinkled, or the odds and ends of a sheet after the pattern was cut out for the cereal box, or the …

Dear Umbra, In reference to your polystyrene response: The polystyrene I have seen recently appears with a No. 6 recycling triangle on the bottom. But I've heard there is no market for this stuff, even though our local recycling company claims to want us to collect all Nos. 1 through 7. How can this be? GailSan Bruno, Calif. Dearest Gail, It's a trick. Since recycling became the Next Big Thing in the 1980s, towns have been testing all sorts of rules, collection bins, and guidelines to see which work best. Some places commingle everything: Glass, plastic, and paper all get …

"What's in a name?" asks Shakespeare. Conscientious food consumers are beginning to realize that the answer too often is, "Not much." Eggsellent. Shoppers increasingly are willing to pay more for food produced in a way that protects human health, water, wildlife, rural communities, and farm workers. And this is not lost on marketers. Many grocery packages today include "eco-labels" that make attractive claims. Grocery shelves are bulging with food labeled "Natural," "Free-Range," and "Sustainable." But much of this labeling is just spin. "Free-Range" chicken conjures an image of birds pecking contentedly around a farmhouse. In reality, Department of Agriculture standards …

New Report Delivers Good News on Water Usage Americans used 408 billion gallons of water a day in 2000, a number virtually unchanged since 1985 and lower (down 25 percent per capita) than in 1975, says a report released yesterday by the U.S. Geological Survey. "Conservation," the report says, "is working." Though the public tends to be preoccupied with private water usage, homes and businesses account for only 11 percent of the total. Electricity generation accounts for 48 percent and irrigation 34 percent -- technological advances in those areas have allowed total water use to stay steady despite increases in …

Dear Umbra, While we were cleaning out a family member's house, a neighbor stopped by to see what we were up to. I mentioned that we were tossing "real trash" into the large dumpster and compiling recyclable materials for a trip to the recycling center or metal scrap yard. We don't know this person well, but without him knowing our political persuasion, he stated that recycling is just another segment of the "liberal lie" and that only 2 percent or less of recyclables collected by municipalities in the United States are processed and used here. He then claimed that the …

Dear Umbra, Some time ago, the public radio program This American Life, hosted by Ira Glass, was about recycling. Glass reported, "Experts agree that we have plenty of landfill space for the foreseeable future." He proposed that recycling therefore did little more than make us feel good. The hapless person he interviewed came up with no better response to that than, "Well, what's wrong with feeling good?" Glass pointed out that recycling paper costs less than using raw materials such as trees, but that was not true of other recyclables such as glass. Besides, he said, we are in no …

Dear Umbra, My friend has the notion that recycling programs lose money. Where does this come from? I can imagine situations where that could be the case, but in most cities there seems to be plenty of material being recycled to justify the collection infrastructure, etc. And surely there are markets for more recycled content than we currently produce. Why does the myth persist that recycling doesn't make sense? And are there items that don't pay for themselves? MikeLexington, Ky. Dearest Mike, Cities promote and support recycling programs for two reasons: public demand and financial good sense. (In special, hippie-filled …

What organization are you affiliated with? What does it do? I work with the Hazel Wolf Environmental Film Network. I have been on the board for three years now. Every year this organization puts on a film festival in Leavenworth, Wash. This year it is March 18-21. We are showing more than 50 films from around the world. Over the span of four days, people from all over get to come together to view films, eat, talk, and learn about how we can improve the environment from a multitude of perspectives. The best part of the festival is that it …