Latest Articles
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Raids are increasing on farms and private food-supply clubs — here are 5 tips for surviving one
When the 20 agents arrived bearing a search warrant at her Ventura County farmhouse door at 7 a.m. on a Wednesday a couple weeks back, Sharon Palmer didn’t know what to say. This was the third time she was being raided in 18 months, and she had thought she was on her way to resolving […]
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Ambitious plans afoot to save turtles in the Gulf
The Gulf spill threatens loggerhead turtles, who are nesting along the Florida coast right now.Photo courtesy Crazy Creatures via FlickrSea Turtle Conservancy Director David Godfrey took a minute to update me on what is being done to safeguard sea turtles swimming and nesting along Gulf shores this summer. He described transporting 70,000 loggerhead turtle eggs, […]
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The Emerging Politics of Food Scarcity
A dangerous geopolitics of food scarcity is emerging in which individual countries, acting in their narrowly defined self-interest, reinforce the trends causing global food security to deteriorate. This began in late 2007 when wheat-exporting countries, like Russia and Argentina, attempted to counter domestic food price rises by limiting or banning exports. Viet Nam banned rice […]
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Paleoclimatologist studies sea levels in a desert
Exactly how much did the sea level rise three million years ago? Okay. Probably not a question you’ve asked yourself lately. But the question and, more importantly, its answer are significant. They will help scientists understand how fast and how high our current sea levels are likely to rise as today’s global warming trend melts […]
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Hitachi and Schwarzenegger
Hitachi’s Plant Technologies division and two cities in Japan are selling treated sewage water to an iron ore mining company in West Australia for use in industrial processes that today consume scarce drinking water. Ore ships go to Japan fully loaded, but come back to Australia empty, taking on seawater as ballast for that return […]
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Tainted cereal exposes soggy food-safety system
Photo by Mykl Roventine, FlickrOn June 25, Kellogg’s issued a “voluntary recall” of 28 million boxes of its breakfast cereals, including Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, and Honey Smacks. The company revealed it had detected an “uncharacteristic off-flavor and smell coming from the liner in the package” of the suspect cereal and warned of […]
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Historian: It’s too soon to expect large-scale responses to the Gulf leak
Penn State historian Adam Rome studies the American environmental movement and is working on a book about the first Earth Day, which was prompted in part by an offshore drilling disaster in Santa Barbara. Yesterday, he told the Washington Post that it could take another year before we can tell if the Gulf oil leak […]
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Response to the population doomsayers and Robert Walker
Thanks for all of the responses over the past two days to my queries about proposed solutions to the population problem and the "optimum" global population. So here are some observations followed by my response to the questions Robert Walker posed in his piece claiming that population is still a major issue.
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Long Island town threatens to sue Fannie & Freddie over clean-energy program
Here’s the latest in the dispute with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), a finance tool that helps homeowners cut energy waste: Babylon, N.Y., Supervisor Steve Bellone tells Fannie and Freddie to stop hating on his town’s clean-energy program at a rally with local building workers and homeowners.Courtesy Town of […]
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ScamWow! Greenpeace has the perfect solution for scrubbing BP’s oily image
Mocking the scam that is the BP cleanup, Greenpeace today released the “ScamWow!” infomercial targeting BP and other oil companies who need a quick solution whenever pesky ecological devastation results from their irresponsible, risky drilling practices. Spoofing the original late night cable sensation, the ScamWow! info-mock-cial demonstrates how the simple budget picker-upper’s cleaning powers can […]
