Environment

Is organic food better? There's growing evidence
As production of organic foods is rising about 20 percent a year, farmers markets are crowded and even mainstream grocery stores carry organic produce. Organics are moving beyond the fad stage, Jim Riddle says. They are here to stay because they are of

'Food, Inc.': The Unsavory Business of Feeding America
By Ann Hornaday Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, June 19, 2009 In the muckraking tradition of Upton Sinclair and the slick documentary stylings of "An Inconvenient Truth," Robert Kenner's "Food, Inc." seeks to lift the curtain on the cynical and o

Dust storms on rise in Western U.S.
Nestled in the San Juan Mountains at 9,300 feet, and surrounded by 13,000-foot peaks, Silverton, Colo., seems an unlikely place for a dust storm, especially with 2 feet of snow on the ground. So Chris Landry was alarmed the afternoon of April 3 when he sa

The Roots of a Gardening Obsession
The British are obsessed with gardens. Each year they spend almost billion on their gardens, close to what the country spent last year on military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ten-year waiting lists to rent a tiny plot in inner-city community ga

Will California Shuck Corn Ethanol?
California regulators have apparently discovered it ain't easy being green. The California Air Resources Board began two days of hearings in Sacramento on Thursday on a proposed Low Carbon Fuel Standard which considers the carbon intensity of fuels during

Carbon trading won't stop climate change
ONE day renewable energy looks like a sunrise industry, the next, tumbleweeds are blowing around a setting solar panel. What has changed? The price of emitting carbon dioxide. In 2005 the European Union created the world's first proper carbon market, t

Corn Ethanol Will Not Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions
California regulators, trying to assess the true environmental cost of corn ethanol, are poised to declare that the biofuel cannot help the state reduce global warming. As they see it, corn is no better – and might be worse – than petroleum when total

White House Seeks Bill on Climate by December
BOSTON -- Climate czar Carol Browner said she wants Congress to establish a broad U.S. greenhouse-gas policy before global climate-change talks near the end of the year. Speaking at a conference Monday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ms.

Chinese drywall poses potential risks
PARKLAND, Fla. – At the height of the U.S. housing boom, when building materials were in short supply, American construction companies used millions of pounds of Chinese-made drywall because it was abundant and cheap. Now that decision is haunting hund

Report: Ethanol raises cost of nutrition programs
WASHINGTON (AP) — The increased use of ethanol could cost the government up to 0 million for food stamps and child nutrition programs, a congressional report says. Higher use of the corn-based fuel additive accounted for about 10 percent to 15 percent

Sorry, But The Science Is Never 'Settled'
President Obama has said that the science of global warming is "beyond dispute," and therefore settled. This is the justification for the imposition of a carbon cap-and-trade system that will cost trillion. But Obama does not understand science.

Fire And Ice
Climate Change: An ice shelf in Antarctica begins to break apart, and the global warming hysterics immediately blame human activities for the crackup. Is it possible that there is some other cause?

To GM or Not To GM
There’s been quite a bit of contention erupt over a bill being proposed in the House, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, HR 875: This bill is purportedly to establish a ‘Food Safety Administration’ within the DHHS to regulate food safety, labellin

Bee hygiene key to world food supply
Bee hygiene may not be right at the top of most people's worry lists in these troubled times. But maybe it should be. For, if researchers are to be believed, the future of the world's food supplies may depend on it. Britain's only professor of apiculture

The future of food
“No Farms, No Food,” is the motto of American Farmland Trust, an advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. The motto serves as an important reminder to the consuming public that food comes from fields and waterways, not supermarkets. The Trust’s le

Greenopia Releases Online Eco-Ratings for Fast Food Restaurants
SANTA MONICA, CA - Greenopia announced today that it has released the Green Industry's most comprehensive ratings for fast food restaurants. Available on its popular website, www.greenopia.com, the fast food ratings use Greenopia's 4-Leaf rating system to

Australia's Food Bowl, Like The World's, Is Drying Up
Twelve years ago, the rain stopped falling with any consequence in Australia’s prime food-growing region, bounded on the south by the Murray River and the west by the Darling. The clash between nature and agriculture in the Murray-Darling raised food pric

Alice Waters' Crusade For Better Food
(CBS) When it comes to food, Alice Waters is a legend. At age 64, she has done more to change how we Americans eat, cook and think about food than anyone since Julia Child. Waters was only 27 years old in 1971 when she opened her French bistro Chez P

Top 10 Myths about Sustainability
When a word becomes so popular you begin hearing it everywhere, in all sorts of marginally related or even unrelated contexts, it means one of two things. Either the word has devolved into a meaningless cliché, or it has real conceptual heft. “Green” (or,

Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting Research
Biotechnology companies are keeping university scientists from fully researching the effectiveness and environmental impact of the industry’s genetically modified crops, according to an unusual complaint issued by a group of those scientists.

Urban Composting: A New Can of Worms
ON a recent Saturday afternoon, Stephanie Stern and her husband poured 1,000 wriggling red worms from a brown bag into a plastic bin outside their bathroom, looked down and hoped for the best.

California Weather Exposes Fiction of Global Warming
“We're looking at a scenario where there's no more agriculture in California,” Chu told The Los Angeles Times, adding, “I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going.” January had been unusually dry, the start of a third dry year in a row f

The cold truth about global warming
Al Gore and his global warming flunkies have half the world brainwashed into thinking our ice caps are melting, our seas are on the verge of boiling, and that everywhere from Miami to Juneau, Alaska is about to be ravaged by tropical diseases from malaria

Catastrophic Fall in 2009 Global Food Production
After reading about the droughts in two major agricultural countries, China and Argentina, I decided to research the extent other food producing nations were also experiencing droughts. This project ended up taking a lot longer than I thought. 2009 looks

Dispatches from the bottom of the Earth: Heading Home
Marine geophysicist Robin Bell is leading an expedition to Antarctica to explore a mysterious mountain range beneath the ice sheet. How long has it been since a bird landed on those peaks? The data enroute to us now will help us unravel the history and

Can tech to clean up nuclear waste also help remove arsenic from drinking water?
Arsenic removal from drinking water is a priority for local water authorities, given that long-term exposure has been linked to a host of serious health problems, including cancer, nervous system damage and atherosclerosis (inflammation) in the arteries

Volcanoes Erupt in Japan and Russia, Spreading Ash
Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Two volcanoes in Japan and another in eastern Russia erupted overnight, spreading ash as far as the Philippines and Vietnam, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

French strikes: Violence erupts as thousands gather to protest on 'Black Thursday'
Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched through French cities, with violence erupting in some places, as part of a day of national strikes demanding pay rises and better protection for jobs.

EU calls for global carbon market
The European Commission wants to build a global carbon trading market as part of a plan to tackle climate change.