A worried mother discovers the secrets of pesticide testing

Three years ago, while my extended family was vacationing at my dad’s cranberry farm, he mentioned that one of his...

Photographer Laurie Tümer shows the hidden paths of pesticides

Click here to see Tümer’s photos. Photo: Laurie Tümer. In a segment this fall, Good Morning America simulated pesticide exposure...

With a CAFE boost looking out of reach, enviros check out other options

Is CAFE kaput? Since 1975, CAFE — or corporate average fuel economy — standards have stood as America’s defining energy-efficiency...

Can we make a power shift without nuclear power?

Yesterday I noted that Judith Lewis' otherwise excellent piece on nuclear power elided what is, from the environmentalist's point of view, the central question: Could we achieve the same power shift away from fossil fuels without nuclear power?

Latter-day green proponents of nuclear power say we couldn't, but that's all they do: say so. Why can't we get some kind of definitive answer? Lewis, in an email, says the question is just too damn vexed:

The thing is, I could find people who could show you the math that says wind and solar could replace coal next year, and an equal number of sane and competent experts who would argue, convincingly, that they aren't. I don't think we'll know who's right until someone actually does it -- someone with huge piles of cash to pour into distributing renewable power on a large scale.

That sounds about right to me. I've seen confident claims that plug-in hybrids alone could solve the energy problem, and equally confident claims that nothing -- no mix of solar, wind, nuclear, whatever -- is going to make up the difference from oil. I've seen a lot of confidence, but nothing that strikes me as dispositive.

So how to puzzle through this question?

Terry Kellogg, director of 1% for the Planet, answers questions

Terry Kellogg. What work do you do? I’m the executive director of 1% for the Planet. What does your organization...

Green Gauge Report: Bad news

Here we are on the day before a long holiday weekend. A perfect day to bury bad news. So here goes.

The Green Gauge Report is a poll on environmental attitudes, based on 2,000 face-to-face interviews, conducted with a broad cross-section of demographics representative of the U.S. Census, undertaken by an arm of market-research outfit GfK NOP. They do it every year -- though for some reason they skipped 2004.

Joel Makower discusses this year's GGR in a post that tries -- one might say 'strains mightily' -- to put an optimistic spin on the results. But from what I've seen (and I've exchanged a few emails with Bob Pares, the guy who ran it), the results are almost uniformly discouraging. Consider this, from Joel's post:

Here's a breakdown of the study's five market segmentations for 2005 and 1995 (the numbers don't add up to 100 due to rounding):

• True-Blue Greens -- the most environmentally active segment of society: 11% of the U.S. population in 1995, 11% in 2005.
• Greenback Greens -- those most willing to pay the highest premium for green products: 7% in 1995, 8% in 2005.
• Sprouts -- fence-sitters who have embraced environmentalism more slowly: 31% in 1995, 33% in 2005.
• Grousers -- uninvolved or disinterested in environmental issues, who feel the issues are too big for them to solve: 14% in 1999, 14% in 2005.
• Apathetics -- the least engaged group who believe that environmental indifference is mainstream (referred to as "Basic Browns" in earlier Roper polls): 35% in 1995, 33% in 2005.

So: basically no change in the last decade in the number of folks genuinely concerned and engaged with environmental problems.

A green gift-giving guide for all the folks on your holiday list

Are you the type who puts off holiday shopping until the last minute, makes a guilt-ridden and miserable foray to...

Wal-Mart’s eco-announcements generate a clash among activists

The mother ship. Photo: Wal-Mart. It was easy for Wal-Mart’s critics to laugh this past spring when CEO Lee Scott...

Further Down the Drain

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation wants to bet up to $1 billion of your tax dollars that its latest proposals to carry toxic waste waters away from the nation's largest federal irrigation project will not result in another ecological disaster like the selenium poisoning of the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge more than 20 years ago.

The Bureau is putting the final touches on an environmental impact statement (EIS) due Feb. 1, 2006 in which it will announce support for one of three possible drainage solutions: Delta Disposal, Central Coast disposal, or building drainage treatment facilities and evaporation ponds within the San Joaquin Valley with varying levels of land retirement.

Opponents say the Bureau's science is flawed, threatens fisheries and birds, and that construction and operation costs are likely to become astronomical for keeping just a few hundred growers in business irrigating a desert.