6 Articles

Monday, October 27, 2008
The grass may be greener on the downside of the hill
What might be the most serious economic crisis in 80 years is rolling across the planet, so financial panic has shoved food shortages, public-health emergencies, and ecological disasters into the background. There is still time to cure the malignant economic growth that we've unleashed. We should be ready; the unsettled times that lie ahead may offer the opening we've been looking for.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Boatloads of Trouble
(3 comments) Around seaports, railways, and highways, surging imports leave soot and cancer in their wake

Friday, May 30, 2008
It will take more than gardening to fix our food system
(2 comments) The edible-landscaping trend is catching on across the country, but the mainstays of home gardening -- vegetables and fruits -- are not the foundation of the human diet or of world agriculture. That role is played by grain crops. To repair the broken system that supplies the bulk of the nation's diet will require Americans to step out of the garden and into the public arena.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Turning water into ethanol is no miracle
(3 comments) The federally mandated rush to boost production of corn ethanol will hasten depletion of water resources in areas of the Great Plains that are most dependent on groundwater. The water that remains could support a thriving economy, but not the one that agribusiness has thrust on the region.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008
The ignored risks of America's most popular antibiotics
The most widely prescribed class of antibiotics in America is making thousands of people very sick. But the drugs are too popular to withdraw.

Saturday, April 15, 2006
The Real Death Tax
The annual income-tax filing deadline is a good time to consider what we're paying for: a $563 million military budget, a war in Iraq that could cost trillions, and an immeasurably deep hole of death and misery.