Latest Articles
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Tom Turner reviews Transforming Electricity by Walt Patterson
Walt Patterson is a physicist by training, an entertaining and lucid writer (he seldom misses a chance at wordplay -- note the title of this book), a fan of jazz and baseball and real ale, and an incisive popularizer of important but complicated matters. And yes, he's my friend. Remind me to tell you some day about several hours we spent years ago in the bookstores on and near Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley, scouring dusty shelves for out-of-print popular books on atomic energy, The Atom Is Your Friend and such.
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Grime and Punishment
A Russian military and environmental journalist was acquitted yesterday of treason and espionage charges. Grigory Pasko was arrested and imprisoned in November 1997 after filing a report for a Japanese television station that purportedly showed Russian sailors dumping radioactive waste into the Sea of Japan. Prosecutors accused Pasko of selling military secrets, but Pasko says […]
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Roundtable Still Benighted
The Business Roundtable, representing chief executives of more than 200 of the largest U.S. companies, yesterday called for a national summit to discuss ways business and government can speed the development of energy-efficient technologies. The group touted the great potential of new energy-related technologies to curb global warming and cut businesses’ production costs. The Roundtable […]
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Pop the Corks?
One day after some estimates that the world population has hit 6 billion, the House voted to restore U.S. support for the U.N. Population Fund, which was cut off last fall by the GOP. Yesterday, 46 Republicans joined the majority of Democrats in voting for up to $25 million in U.S. aid. The bill stipulates […]
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Phew, I Feel Safer Already
The U.S. Army plans to manufacture and use eco-friendly bullets that will still kill people but won’t be quite so deadly to the environment. New tungsten-based bullets will be phased in as replacements for traditional lead bullets, which can cause lead buildup in the environment and contaminate sediments, surface water, and groundwater. Some 1 million […]
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A Chicken-S**t Tax Cut
Tax credits would go to companies that convert chicken droppings into electricity under a provision tucked into a giant Senate tax-cut bill by Sen. William Roth (R-Del.). Chicken farming is the largest agricultural enterprise in Delaware, and chicken manure has become a major source of pollution. Technology for burning the manure to produce electricity has […]
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Himalayan Low
Global warming could melt Himalayan glaciers within 40 years, according to new research to be presented this week at a meeting of the World Meteorological Organization. The Gangotri glacier at the head of the Ganges River is receding at a rate of about 90 feet per year. The melting of glaciers could increase the risk […]
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Seeds of Change
Scientists have learned how to manipulate genes within a plant, a technique the biotechnology industry hopes environmentalists will like more than current genetic modification methods, which involve transplanting foreign genes into crops. The new method, made public today in two articles in the journal of the National Academy of Sciences, could let scientists tinker with […]
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A Grand Stand
Environmentalists are speculating that Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt will try to protect 650,000 acres on Arizona’s Shivwets Plateau north of the Grand Canyon during his last 18 months in office. If Arizona’s congressional delegation can’t agree on legislation to do the job, Babbitt is expected to push Pres. Clinton to designate the area as a […]
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Post-Mitch Hitch
In the wake of Hurricane Mitch, new interest is growing in Central America in environmentally sound land-management practices. Some farmers took note of the fact that communities with protected forest areas held up much better during the hurricane than communities where most trees had been felled. Still, development workers say it’s a tough challenge to […]
