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And other words from readers

  Re: Let It Be Me Dear Editor: I liked the interview with Emily Saliers. But please suggest to Kathryn that she refer to these “new” energy sources as renewable rather than alternative. I am in the business of designing, installing, and promoting the occasional solar-electric system. As long as we keep calling it “alternative,” […]

Starting from scratch with chickens and eggs

Chicks and balances. Photo: USDA. It’s very provoking, as Humpty Dumpty once told Alice, to be called an egg. After all, a name must mean something. “My name,” he told her, “means the shape I am — and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, […]

A Peruvian activist takes on the fishmeal industry

Maria Elena Foronda Farro was born to be an activist. Her father, a union lawyer in Chimbote, Peru, taught her — through words and by example — about the importance of social justice. Foronda, who grew up in Chimbote and earned a master’s degree in sociology in Mexico, is now applying her father’s lessons to […]

Afri-can Do

Seeking to capitalize on the potential of renewable energy sources, 10 African nations are collaborating to increase their combined geothermal power generation to 1,000 megawatts by 2020. Geothermal power yields electricity by trapping steam released by water reservoirs deep inside the Earth. It is a clean and reliable energy source, and the United National Environment […]

Throwing It in Reverse

Ford Motor Company backpedaled yesterday on its promise to increase the fuel economy of sport utility vehicles 25 percent by 2020. It now says it will continue to try to improve gas mileage but will not set a fixed deadline for reaching the 25-percent goal. The company chalked up the change in plan to technological […]

Pedro Arrojo-Agudo has started a new water culture in the Old World

Economics professor Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, who teaches at the University of Zaragoza in Spain, is using his academic expertise to battle a monster: the National Hydrological Plan, a $25 billion project that would build 120 dams on the Ebro River. The dams would submerge entire towns along Spain’s second-longest river, displace tens of thousands of rice […]

Public Employees Should Be Seen and Not Heard

Speaking truth to power has its price — just ask Dave Moody and Bob Jackson. Moody, one of Wyoming’s leading predator biologists and an employee of the state Department of Game and Fish since 1976, was suspended from his job last week after publicly expressing doubts that the state’s proposed wolf management plan would ensure […]

Lead Story

Lead levels that are currently assumed to be safe for children can significantly impair intellectual development, according to a groundbreaking report published in today’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The current U.S. and international allowable blood lead level is 10 micrograms per deciliter, but researchers found that lead levels lower than that […]

Give a Hoot

Pollution in North America decreased by 5 percent between 1995 and 2000, according to a report released today by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, established under the North American Free Trade Agreement. In 2000, the U.S., Canada, and Mexico released 3.6 million tons of pollution. Of that, 1.5 million tons went directly into the air, […]

Orange Alert

The U.S. military sprayed twice as much herbicide on Vietnam during the war there than previously estimated, according to a study published today in the journal Nature. Relying on previously unexamined military documents and new assessments of dioxin concentrations, the study found that an additional 1.8 million gallons of toxic herbicides, mostly Agent Orange, were […]