Type of content: Blog
It’s ironic that the images of flooding in the mid-west are accompanied by stories about government agencies pleading with people in those hard-hit areas to conserve water, because the floods have contaminated drinking water supplies. The recent...
Type of content: Blog
With gas prices rising to over $4.00 per gallon, long-hidden costs of the fuel embedded within our food system are beginning to show with higher prices at the supermarket checkout. The legacy of once-cheap oil, petroleum now pervades every phase of...
Type of content: Blog
Keeping a book short is no easy task, especially on a set of topics as complex and controversial as population and the reproductive intentions of women.
Type of content: Blog
In the agricultural age, the 18th and 19th century, the American Dream could have been summarized as “40 acres and a mule.” An independent Jeffersonian “yeoman farmer” was an ideal that attracted many immigrants here. In the industrial age, the early and...
Type of content: Blog
Recently, I received a review copy of a handbook for people seeking “green” careers. This has been beat for a long time now, and I’m always interested in other people’s wisdom and advice. I was vaguely troubled after reading it, but I couldn’t exactly...
Type of content: Blog
Unintended consequences. Do we wish we knew then what we know now? I encounter the phrases often while investigating environmental and health impacts of the materials that go into consumer products. News this week reminded me why it’s time to retire...
Type of content: Blog
Yes, it finally happened. We’re down to two in the race. The others have dropped out, the final holdout brushed aside and the main event begins. Of course I’m talking about the NBA finals. Great east-west rivalry with two teams that have very different...
Type of content: Blog
Rocket launches are always exciting. So are clean energy revolution launches. Although I have never attended the launch of an American space rocket, I have been there at the launch of a clean energy revolution, a more terrestrial but just as important...
Type of content: Blog
Some people think policies aimed at slowing population growth are foisted on the developing world by heavy-handed industrialized countries. Actually, most population policies are home grown, and sometimes none the better for this. I have a hunch there’s...
Type of content: Blog
With gas above $4.00 a gallon, increased fuel costs pushing up prices of almost everything else, and a host of other factors conspiring to challenge household budgets, nearly everyone is figuring out how to do with less of something. Leaving aside those...