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| EcoWorld Magazine 2003 |
 Solar Energy Heats Up in India- Brook & Guarav Bhagat, 11-17-03 One reason solar energy still cannot compete financially vs. conventional energy is because of the perceived "time-value" of money, making long-term receipts not worth as much as near-term receipts. Traditional models of economic analysis for an energy system lasting 50 years treat the free energy in years 11 through 50 as nearly worthless. But if a society as a whole desires energy independence, a solar energy system's return on investment in year 50 is no less valuable than its return on investment in year one... |
 Cleaning Contaminated Soil- Ed Ring, 11-16-03 Wouldn't it be better to clean and reuse contaminated soil? What if toxins could be inexpensively removed from soil, on-site, instead of being hauled to a landfill? This is the vision that inspired Jonathan Brewer to found EarthWorks Environmental in 1998, and in barely four years his small company has treated over 50 million pounds of contaminated soil. Based in Sacramento, California, Brewer's company offers a unique and patented innovation, whereby mining equipment used to crush ore is adapted to grind up soil so that chemical and biological reagents can be sprayed onto the fine particles, neutralizing the toxins... |
 Recycling Myths- Daniel Benjamin, 11-15-03 Recycling is not always the environmentally correct choice. Many items we recycle come from abundant raw materials and are inert and harmless when dumped. It costs more to recycle these than to bury the used and manufacture the new from scratch. There's plenty of land for landfills, there's very little hazard remaining in modern landfills, and the economics and the environment often favor using them. Trillions are squandered on needless recycling. So what myths prevent change?... |
 Arid Agriculture- Brook & Guarav Bhagat, 8-14-03 Deserts spread but deserts are not inevitable. Restored ecosystems, managed by humans, can reclaim desertified land through harvesting and storing more rainwater, planting hardy trees that none-the-less yield a crop, and sustainable farming and grazing areas. Such a practice may not stop every desert, but it beats using the land for overgrazing livestock, allowing excess water to run-off each year, and allowing all the trees to die. If tomorrow trees were planted this way everywhere, it might certainly make a positive difference... |
 Seawater Farms- Daniela Muhawi, 8-12-03 The earth is a thirsty planet, since over a third of the world's population can barely get enough water to fulfill basic needs such as hydration and hygiene. But while fresh water is often in short supply, the earth is over 70% covered with salt water. What if salt water were able to irrigate farmland? How would that change the ironclad equation whereby fresh water and energy are the prerequisites for life and prosperity? A little-known experiment in the far-flung country of Eritrea... |
 Ten Capitalist Myths- Ed Ring, 8-11-03 Capitalism leads to wealth, wealth leads to investment, investment spawns innovation, and through glorious creative destruction, today's innovations surpass and replace yesterday's, creating more wealth. Through capitalist initiative, civilization has advanced beyond the wildest imaginings of our forbears. Today we cure diseases that were incurable. We cultivate miracle crops to feed the world. There is no problem in that cannot eventually be solved if we just give capitalist entrepreneurs free rein. Yet in spite of compelling evidence... |
 Energy From The Oceans- Gordon Feller, 8-09-03 Terawatts of energy bombard earth daily via the sun's rays, but competitively converting renewable solar energy into usable energy, electricity in particular, remains a formidable hurdle. When evaluating totally renewable sources of energy for their economic viability, the world's oceans beckon as an alternative quietly emerging, especially in Europe, as a replacement to fossil fuels that could take hold before solar solutions. Ocean winds blow harder and with more reliable consistency than wind on land, which more than offsets the greater cost of building windmills offshore... |
 Fighting Monocultures of the Mind- Paolo Scopacasa, 6-11-03 Time magazine depicted her as a hero who "has made it her mission to fight for social justice in many arenas" and a major environmentalist who is leading a noble fight for "the preservation of agricultural diversity." Some advocates of biotechnology have expressed different views. For Michael Fumento, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, "if developing world farmers took her one-tenth as seriously as do Western activists, her proclamations would lead inexorably to massive famine. The controversial figure in question is the well-known physicist and writer Vandana Shiva from Doon Valley, India. |
 The World's Rhinos- Daniela Muhawi, 5-25-03 A rhino horn is simply a hollow structure formed by thickly matted hair follicles that grow from the head. The entire horn is composed of the protein keratin. Keratin, a very common protein, is found in hooves, fingernails and in the outer covering of cattle and antelope horns, yet only the rhino horn has healing powers associated with it. The efficiency of the rhino horn as a drug is an invented myth, but the fact remains that rhino horns are a much sought after product, fetching prices as high as 3,000 dollars a horn. ... |
 Water: The Second Element- Brook & Guarav Bhagat, 3-21-03 Hydrologists define a country as suffering "water stress" when the amount of fresh water per person drops below 1,700 cubic meters per year. In recent times the number of people facing water stress has reached almost one billion, which will increase to 3 billion by 2025 according to the current trend of growing population. This means people affected by water stress will not get enough water for their daily life-- cooking, drinking, bathing... |
 Ten Environmentalist Myths- Ed Ring, 3-16-03 Being capitalist and being environmentalist are not incompatible, if the assumptions of environmentalism are constantly challenged when determining public policy, and companies that use and process energy and water efficiently are rewarded in a less-regulated marketplace. Does a myth-free environmentalist still want to save species, preserve ocean wilderness, biodiversity? Yes, even passionately, but with passion moderated by practical compromises... |
 David Brower's Legacy- Sabrina Juarez, 1-03-03 A century ago, conservationists such as John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt left behind a legacy of achievements that changed America forever. In recent years, one man stands out as another leader of this stature. David Brower, who during his long life successfully campaigned to preserve countless natural wonders, was the creative force behind some of the most powerful environmental organizations in the USA. But he is also remembered as a man who loved people, and enjoyed life to the fullest, and as someone who could broker agreements between bitterly opposed interests... |
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