
Overpopulation
Those who reject the importance of population as an environmental issue stress that resource consumption rather than population size has led to our current global environmental impact. True, resource consumption is central, leading to perhaps two thirds of the growth ...
Read More
Read More

What’s out and what’s in for 2021
by Bill Schlesinger What’s Out What’s In ___________________________________________________ Climate Change Denial The Paris Climate Accord Pebble Creek Mine Chinook Salmon Beliefs Science Maskholes Vaccines Polluted Streams Clean Water Rule Beautiful Coal Solar Power Agent Orange Deliberative Discourse Golf Dogs in ...
Read More
Read More

Agricultural Landscapes
by Bill Schlesinger A few years ago, in her wonderful book, The Seed Underground, Janisse Ray described the genetic homogenization of food crops. Three species (wheat, corn and rice) account for 87 percent of all grain production worldwide, and in ...
Read More
Read More

Diapers: to change or not to change
by Bill Schlesinger Whether they are used on the very young or the very old, disposable diapers must be regarded as one of the most convenient products of modern society. Question is: what type of impact do these products have ...
Read More
Read More

Atrazine and Frogs
by Bill Schlesinger In 2002, a young Berkeley professor, Tyrone Hayes, reported that deformed frogs were most prevalent in farm ponds in counties across the United States where the herbicide atrazine was sold in the largest quantities. Atrazine is a ...
Read More
Read More

Food Waste
by Bill Schlesinger Our parents told us not to waste food—urging us to be a member of the “clean-plate” club! Now, several studies have examined the magnitude of the food waste problem and its impacts on the environment. In ...
Read More
Read More

Science vs. Anti-science
by Bill Schlesinger This is a blog that attempts to translate science to the general public, using simple language to describe what we know and what we don’t know about how the world works. Among its basic goals, Translational Ecology ...
Read More
Read More

One toke over the line sweet Jesus
by Bill Schlesinger Living in Maine, a state with legalized sale and use of marijuana, I’ve seen a proliferation of pot shops across the countryside. A lot of cannabis was used here before the new policy, but now we can ...
Read More
Read More

The Futility of Soil Carbon Sequestration
by Bill Schlesinger In the past few years, many agronomists have promoted the sequestration of carbon in soils as a means of mitigating climate change by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide that accumulates in the atmosphere. For a long ...
Read More
Read More

Embodied Energy in Housing
Wooden house by Bill Schlesinger The housing of the world contains a lot of carbon, mostly in wood, so it is interesting to ask if this carbon stock is large enough to represent a significant removal of carbon dioxide from ...
Read More
Read More