EarthTalk Q&A

Dear EarthTalk: What is a “dead zone” in an ocean or other body of water?

Dear EarthTalk: I heard of a practice called cyanide fishing, which is used mostly to collect aquarium specimens, but I understand it is also used to catch fish we eat. Isn’t this very unhealthy?

Dear EarthTalk: I don’t hear much about the environmental impacts of our consumer culture any more, but it seems to me that our “buy, buy, buy” mentality is a major contributor to our overuse of energy and resources. Are any organizations addressing this issue today?

Dear EarthTalk: As I understand it, “Debt-for-Nature Swaps” are arrangements by which countries can erase debt by preserving land. Are any being done today?

Dear EarthTalk: I heard about something called the Green Café Network. What is it and what are they trying to accomplish for the environment?

Dear EarthTalk: I’ve been hearing more and more references to the need to clean up our agricultural practices for reasons pertaining to health, food quality, even global warming. What are the major environmental issues today associated with agriculture?

Why can’t plastics of all types, instead of being initially sorted, simply be melted together to be separated later? It must be a monumental and error-prone task to separate truckloads of plastics.

I have carpet made of recycled PET bottles in my baby’s room. I started noticing a lot of the fibers on our clothes and even in my mouth! Is it dangerous?

Dear EarthTalk: Can earthquake energy be harnessed for power, particularly in places like Japan? Also, how can Japan, so vulnerable to earthquakes, even have nuclear power?

Dear EarthTalk: Why don’t we reprocess and re-use our nuclear waste like France does? Would it be possible for us to start doing so?