Between the Arab Spring, the weird weather, and, well, the Casey Anthony trial, you may have missed the fact that 2011 was proclaimed “The International Year of Forests” by the [ … ]
Category: Science
More Evidence of the Importance of Forests: They’re Even Bigger Carbon Sinks than Thought
Want to see clear connections between environmental degradation and economic struggles? Deforestation provides about as clear a picture as any example: the loss of ecological services (flood control, water and [ … ]
The Greenpeace Australia GMO Wheat Action: A Sad Day For Bread. A Sad Day For Science
On July, 14, three Greenpeace activists dressed in hazmat suits scaled a fence, and used weed whips to destroy a GMO wheat experiment in Canberra, Australia. The experiment was being conducted [ … ]
Damn! 400+ High Temperature Records Broken in US
It’s still mid-summer, and already over 400 individual maximum recorded temperature records have been broken in the US. Are you starting to sweat? Or were you already? Readers can use [ … ]
Are High Global Food Prices A New Norm?
FAO (The food and agriculture organization of the United Nations) released their June estimate of global food price indices yesterday. The new numbers were mixed, but not encouraging overall. [ … ]
Rising Temperatures Melting Away Global Food Security
By Lester R. Brown Heat waves clearly can destroy crop harvests. The world saw high heat decimate Russian wheat in 2010. Crop ecologists have found that each 1-degree-Celsius rise in [ … ]
Biodiversity: a Metaguide
Of all the environmental challenges currently facing us, biodiversity loss probably gets the least amount of broad attention… likely because its also one of the toughest to wrap our heads [ … ]
Genetically Modified Food Is Actually Already Labeled If You Know A Few Rules
Back in 1995, I was party to some discussions about whether about-to-be-released GMO crops should be labeled at the consumer level. It was clear that a failure to do so [ … ]
Growing Goat Herds Signal Global Grassland Decline
After the earth was created, soil formed slowly over geological time from the weathering of rocks. It began to support early plant life, which protected and enriched it until it [ … ]
Apple Crop for 2009: Safest On Record
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) just published a new version of their criminally misleading, “Dirty Dozen list” based on data from the 2009 crop that the USDA released this spring. [ … ]
A Rational Analysis of the USDA Pesticide Residue Data
When the Environmental Working Group (EWG) makes its annual “Dirty Dozen List” of fruits and vegetables with pesticide residues, it does so without paying any attention to which [ … ]
Don’t Let The Environmental Working Group Diminish Your Quality Of Life!
One of the best things about living in a developed country in the modern world is that we have year-around access to delicious and healthful fruits and vegetables at remarkably [ … ]
My Dirty Dozen List
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) puts out a “dirty dozen” list each year based on a criminally misleading interpretation of the USDA-Agricultural Marketing Service, PDP pesticide residue data. The data [ … ]