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Journalistic balance at Scientific American

OMFG. You have to read this note from the editors of Scientific American. It is a thing of beauty.

Neon lights will shine for you

Here in the Northwest, this winter's lack of rain and snow has people muttering about two things: the inevitable drought this summer, and the lack of good skiing right now. Welp, enterprising ski bums in countries including England, Japan, and the Netherlands have found a way around this exact problem: indoor slopes.

Oddly, the U.S. has managed to survive without this concept -- until now. Xanadu, an impossibly gigantic indoor theme park planned for New Jersey's Meadowlands, will include such a hill (and also a chocolate waterfall, but I digress). Despite critics who say the project will damage wetlands, increase traffic, and cause air pollution, the complex got a go-ahead permit last week.

Life is never simple in Jersey, though. A whole brouhaha having to do with nearby Giants stadium might slow things down, giving opponents another chance to howl. Stay tuned.

Grist Grows Up, Moves Out, Gets Real Job

Coming soon: Grist HTML emails with pictures and pretty colors All right, all right, we get it. Text emails are sooo 1998. To get with the times, in April we will be launching a snazzy HTML version of our Grist emails — with pictures and pretty colors and everything! Of course, the emails will still […]

Just One Day Out of Life, It Would Be So Nice

World Water Day celebrated by U.N., few others In case you haven’t heard — and you haven’t — today is World Water Day, an annual holiday aimed at drawing attention to alarming stats about global water needs, encouraging world leaders to take action, and otherwise passing by unnoticed. But today isn’t just any old World […]

The Strife Aquatic

Concerns about sea critters grow as ocean noise levels increase As the world’s shipping traffic more than sextupled between 1948 and 1998, scientists say the oceans’ noise levels have increased by some 15 decibels — and as the impact of decibels is calculated exponentially, that’s nothing to sneeze at. Researchers worry about the possible threat […]

Benefit to Be Tied

EPA ignores own research in creating mercury rule The U.S. EPA may have grossly underestimated the health benefits of mercury-emission reductions, according to a study commissioned by, uh, the EPA. When the Bush administration’s new mercury rule was released last week, administration officials claimed that it would yield only $50 million a year in health […]

Diesel or hybrid? How about both?

Wired News has reported that General Motors, DaimlerChrysler, and Ford are working on diesel-hybrid prototypes.

According to Charlie Freese, executive engineering director at GM Powertrain:

... many factors that make diesel engines more efficient include operating unthrottled and more efficient oxidizing of fuel. Diesel engines also have a higher compression ratio, and the heavier diesel fuel has a higher energy density ... diesel and hybrid technologies have synergies because hybrid systems reduce fuel consumption by relying on the electric motor while idling and during acceleration of stop-and-go traffic. Diesel engines are optimized for hauling heavy loads and for steady-speed highway driving.

Now, longtime Grist readers will know that Umbra has had some harsh words when it comes to diesel (but not biodiesel and SVO though). While responding to a reader asking if a higher gas mileage diesel car is better than a less-particulate-emitting gasoline engine, she offered the following analogy:

Let's recall some stale high school stereotypes: the cruel football player and the catty cheerleader. Diesel oil is the football player -- big, strong, lunk-headed, unwashed, and mean. Gasoline is the cheerleader: slimmer, well-groomed, and socially manipulative. They're both toxic to the school atmosphere, but people are more inclined to avoid the bully, because he is more immediately physically hazardous.

Umbra sums up her article by saying, "... all diesel cars are considered 'inferior' in the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy's Green Book." But what would Umbra think of a diesel hybrid engine? Here's what Dan Benjamin, an analyst at ABI Research, had to say:

"Can hybrid engines help (reduce) diesel emissions? Absolutely," Benjamin said. Although diesel vehicle manufacturers will likely add filters or catalytic converters to reduce emissions, "hybrid systems can cut emissions by eliminating situations where NOx (nitrogen oxide) emissions are at their very worst," according to Benjamin. Meeting California's tougher emissions requirements, which have been adopted by four other states, presents more of a challenge, Benjamin said.

So maybe those nasties Umbra is worried about won't be as much as a concern. What say you?

Tamayo-Paced

Honduras forest activists slow deforestation In central Honduras, where deforestation is widespread, poor farmers and rural residents under the leadership of Roman Catholic priest Andres Tamayo have had a string of successes in their struggle to save the pine forests that sustain them (or used to). The activists say Honduras’ forests have been poorly managed […]

Chew on this

I received a letter from freelance illustrator Kirk Werner in response to my post on gum pollution. Werner wrote to tell me about his latest work, a children's book about gum littering written by Sherry Garr and titled a Grist-worthy Gumfounded. The Gumfounded website offers some peeks into the book and the main character Tia, who steps in gum and begins sticking to all types of litter, which she drags all the way to school. The duo is also planning to add books on air pollution and water conservation to the Tia series.

Eco-label watchdog Urvashi Rangan answers questions

Urvashi Rangan. What work do you do? I’m an environmental-health scientist and policy analyst at Consumers Union. I also manage two public-education websites. Consumers Union also publishes Consumer Reports magazine, and I do dip into the testing and publishing side of the organization, but my work is mostly on the public service, technical policy, and […]