Environment

by Bill Schlesinger I recently reviewed some plans for a proposed new apartment complex in Durham, NC. I was surprised to see that the footprint of the building accounted for only 36% of the area of the project—the remainder consisting ...
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by Bill Schlesinger Agriculture is the world’s top user of surface water, and irrigation is increasingly used to extend agriculture to marginal lands and seasonal climates to maintain crop yield. In the U.S. 15% of agricultural land is irrigated, but ...
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by Bill Schlesinger “Boys, I may not know much, but I know chicken shit from chicken salad.” – Lyndon B. Johnson North Carolina, long known for embracing concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), especially for hogs, has welcomed the burgeoning industrialized ...
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by Bill Schlesinger As a scientist, I am worried about the term environmental justice. Scientists measure things, amassing data to test hypotheses and observe trends. Environmental scientists know how to assess air and water quality by taking samples and analyzing ...
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by Bill Schlesinger Within the past decade or so, the global carbon cycle has become the subject of newspaper articles, cocktail party conversation, and public policy. Most of us are aware that carbon moves between the atmosphere, land plants, and ...
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by Bill Schlesinger You don’t have to look far to see where plastic is discarded to the environment. Roadsides harbor a plethora of plastic bottles; seashores are littered with plastic fishing line and other jetsam of oceanic commerce; airborne plastics ...
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by Bill Schlesinger Motivated by a similar comparison in the Washington Post, here are my choices for what’s out and what’s in (mostly environmental) during the coming year.   Cover the right-hand column and try to guess it. Out In Plastic ...
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by Bill Schlesinger Humans extract minerals from the Earth’s crust to enhance the availability of these materials in our economy and often in the environment. For many metals, the mobilization from mining greatly exceeds the natural release of the elements ...
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by Bill Schlesinger The past week brought a mixed bag of news to my mailbox. The world’s population was estimated to have passed 8 billion folks, each with the desire to be a consumer at the level of Western economies ...
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by Bill Schlesinger (Title from Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer, circa 1385 Most of the human body that is not bone is composed of protein, each built with an array of amino acids that contain nitrogen. Reflecting the homogenization of our ...
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