"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 …

Hybrids Gaining Ground Among Celebs, But Still Pricey for the Rest of Us Thanks to lobbying by intrepid enviro group Global Green USA, several high-profile celebrities arrived at the Academy Awards this year not in stretch limos, but in diminutive hybrid Toyota Priuses. Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, Charlize Theron, Robin Williams, and Sting all pulled up to the red carpet in loaner hybrids, leading some culture wags to speculate that tank-size, nine-mile-per-gallon Hummers are losing the cachet battle to their leaner, more efficient rivals. But consumer advocates warn that the penny-pinching hoi polloi might want to pause before jumping …

Green Home-Building Rising in Popularity Eco-minded builders and environmental groups in the U.S. are pushing to simplify and popularize the notion of "green building," which encompasses practices and materials that reduce waste and make homes more efficient. Green building -- ranging from landscaping with native plants to using carpet made of recycled soda bottles to recycling cast-off construction materials -- has been on the rise for several years: A total of 18,887 green homes were built in the U.S. between 1990 and 2001, while 13,224 were built in 2002 alone. While the added expense of non-standard materials and specialized builders …

The Sierra Club, most venerable of environmental organizations, is awash in charges, countercharges, suits, countersuits, invective, counter-invective, and double counter-invective bounces-off-me-and-sticks-to-you. At issue, depending on whom you talk to, is whether single-issue racists will take over the organization's board or whether club democracy will be squelched by blatant interference from the group's old guard. What's barely discussed in the news accounts I've read is the substantive question behind this fracas: Does it make sense for environmentalists to want to limit immigration? Sierra Club Immigration Debate Que Sierra, Sierra Immigration controversy engulfs Sierra Club board election As it happens, this is …

U.K. Military Accused of Thwarting Wind-Power Development The U.K. Ministry of Defense is blocking efforts to expand wind energy in the country, said a group of top scientists today. The MoD objected to 48 percent of applications to build land-based wind turbine farms in 2003 because it doesn't want turbines within 46 miles of air defense radar installations. While the MoD claims that the turbines interfere with radar, only one other European country, Germany, has a similar prohibition, and that with a much smaller three-mile limit. A government report on Friday said that the U.K. is falling off course in …