Senators threaten to impose industrial-strength rules on small vegetable farms

Salad greens thrive in the fall; they love brisk, cool nights and mild, sunny afternoons. Meet your greens. Photo: iStockphoto...

Can industrial agriculture withstand climate change?

If the fossil fuels don’t getcha, the genetics will. Photo: iStockphoto In the United States, the clearest signs of climate...

Responses to “Environmentalism and animal rights”

Due to the great discussion and responses that this piece elicited, I would like to respond to a number of the comments (sorry that I can't get to everyone's).

IMBY

Residential wind systems gain popularity It’s somewhat ironic, considering all the NIMBY opposition to wind farms, that more and more...

Rag report

It's de rigeur for Mother Earth News and Plenty to feature sustainable living on their covers, but the past few months have seen major glossies such as Vanity Fair, Newsweek, and Forbes doing the green thing.

Now in a September issue devoted to low impact living, Dwell (for those of you unfamiliar, it's a popular home & design magazine) is joining in. And they've done VF one better, actually printing the issue on post-consumer content recycled (PCR) paper -- a practice they pledge to continue in the future. Very few magazines have yet adopted PCR, even though -- as the Dwell issue demonstrates -- the result is stylish and indistinguishable from a virgin pulp product.

An interview with environmental scientist and evangelical leader Calvin DeWitt

No one has worked longer at the intersection of environmental science, evangelical ethics, and practical activism than Calvin DeWitt. Calvin...

Jump on the plug-in hybrid bandwagon

Consider this an open invitation to get on the plug-in hybrid bandwagon. Plug-in hybrids, for those not in the know, are hybrids whose batteries can be recharged by the grid. By running in electric-only mode as much as possible, emissions are reduced and efficiencies gained.

The other week, I visited Prof. Andrew Frank at UC Davis, the popularly acclaimed father of the plug-in hybrid. Impressive stuff.

Among the many vehicles his students have built, he's got a Chevy Equinox -- a smallish SUV -- retrofitted with a 1.6L engine with a continuously variable drive transmission and a lithium ion battery pack that holds about 15 kWh of juice. It can go 60 miles on battery-only, and 100 mpg in all-day driving conditions. If you recharged every night, it could go across the country on one tank of gasoline (runs on e85). Performance? 320 horsepower, 0-60 in 6.5 seconds (vs 9.5 sec stock).

The benefits of plugging in are many.

Champion of ‘social ecology’ dies at 85

Murray Bookchin, who championed a democratic and anti-authoritarian vision of environmental politics, died last week in Vermont at 85.

Bookchin has for years been on my must-read list. I write and work from within a tradition he helped shape. As Brian Tokar recently put it in his obit on Counterpunch, Bookchin sought to "reclaim local political power, by means of direct popular democracy, against the consolidation and increasing centralization of the nation state."

C’est Fin

Sushi popularity means bad news for tuna, WWF warns The popularity of sushi is sending tuna stocks into a downward...