Prevent Toadal Loss!
Armed with good humor and lots of insect repellant, a group of Cornell University students, staff, faculty spent last summer building a “toad tunnel”…
Saving Washington’s Forgotten River
For many Washingtonians, the Potomac River is a symbol of patriotic charm and serene beauty. Slicing through two states, it’s the envy of both Marylanders and Virginians, who still carry on a century-old legal battle over which state can have "control" of the river. The Anacostia River in Washington, DC suffered from decades of neglect.©PAUL […]
The Numbers Game
Confronting Growth and the Environment There’s a minefield in the American environmental movement, and its name is population. Because negotiating that minefield is so dangerous, many environmental groups and leaders have stopped trying to cross it. But to ignore population as a central issue while talking freely about sprawl, air and water pollution, loss of […]
Oh, Canada!
The widely held notion that Canada is taking excellent care of its wild, pristine lands far better than the gluttonous citizens in the United States is nothing more than a misperception approaching myth…
Farming Infertility
Country Living May be Hazardous to Your Potency When epidemiologist Shanna Swan began comparing fertility in urban versus rural men, she thought she knew what she would find. Just as corn, sorghum and soybeans grow better in central Missouri’s hills and hollers than in a polluted parking lot in urban New York, Los Angeles or […]
A Fuss Over Farmland
Punctuating a disturbing land-use trend across the country, the Denver Post reports on recently released census figures showing that Colorado has lost more than a million acres of farmland since 1997, among the most of any state in the nation.
Let Nature Take Its Course
The New York Times reports that critics of the U.S. Forest Service are calling for the agency to allow more wild fires in unpopulated areas to burn without intervention as an ecologically sound method of clearing downed timber and brush while preserving resources for more threatening blazes.
Hemp, Hemp Hooray
Makers of food products containing hemp won a victory last week in federal appeals court. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned a federal rule by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that would have banned the sale of foods containing sterilized hemp seeds and oils containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), well-known as the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
Beating Around the Bush
In a triumph of Bush administration doublespeak, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently cautioned women and children to watch their consumption of fish because of mercury contamination, while at the same time announcing plans to ease restrictions on the very mercury emissions that caused the problem in the first place.
Does drinking hard water result in an unhealthy buildup of minerals
The presence of calcium and magnesium in your water will make it “hard.” These minerals are dissolved in rainwater as it moves through soil and rock. According to a 1980 study done by the National Academy of Sciences on the mineral nutrition of drinking water,