Business and Economics

Buyer Beware

The dark side of green consumerism

Up on the Farm

Growing 11,000 heads of lettuce in a space the size of five parking spots

Last Legs

The not-so-healthy appetite for frog legs

Freeloaders in Hard Times

Global recession linked to a spike in marine invasives

It’s a Fish-Eat-Fish World

Fish-feed substitutes can keep aquaculture from depleting oceans

Flying Solo

The Conservation Hero Re-examined

Eco Barons: The Dreamers, Schemers, and Millionaires Who Are Saving Our Planet
By Edward Humes, Ecco Press 2009.
Review by Florence Williams

How important are individuals to social change? The question has been a topic of lively debate since at least the Enlightenment. In Eco Barons: The [...]

Biofuels Déjà Vu

Lured by dreams of “green” fuel, could we end up trampling biodiversity in the name of saving the planet?

Story by David Malakoff
Illustration by Randy Lyhus
April-June 2009
These days, Jason Clay walks around with an eerie sense of déjà vu. Over the past few years, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) anthropologist has become deeply entangled in the [...]

Biofuel Bust

The potential for farming fuels has been inflated

Johnston, M. et al. 2008. Resetting global expectations from agricultural biofuels. Environmental Research Letters DOI:10.1088/1748-9326/4/1/014004
From corn and castor to sorghum and sweet potato, it seems like almost any crop is capable of running our cars these days. But as biofuel boosters talk up production potential of these [...]

The Nature of the Fiscal World

Will the environment gain or lose from the financial meltdown and its economic aftermath?

Power Walk

New device harvests energy one step at a time

Photo courtesy of Simon Fraser University
By Justin Matlick
July-September 2008 (Vol. 9, No. 3)
Max Donelan is giving new meaning to the term “power walker.” An assistant professor at Simon Fraser University and chief science officer at Bionic Power Inc., Donelan and his colleagues have developed an [...]