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Welcome to News By Nature. We present science in an unscientific way. We make mistakes and misspell but never mislead. Most important these days: we may have our opinions but strive always to tell both sides of the story. At NBN it's all about the science, not who's side you're on. We try to publish every Tuesday. Some times we're a little late.
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07.27.10 IN NBN
Welcome to the gray issue of NBN where's nothing's black or white. In the Opinion Page we vacillate on society and stupidity. In Good News we ponder the point with potty humor and lofty notions and in Popular Wisdom the horrors of Hummers and hubris are handled with humility. It's all about second thoughts, second guesses, on-the-other-hands and gray areas in NBN this week.
This section of New Jersey is called the Meadowlands, but it looked pretty gray when we snapped these shots at 60 mph on the Turnpike recently. Why are these 40-ton excavators just behind the guard rail above tearing up what were once sensitive salt marshes vital to the Hudson River/ New York Harbor estuary? We might also wonder why oil terminals and tank farms, garbage and dredge dumps, and sports complexes were, and still are operating in these same salt marshes.You could argue the people before us responsible for neutering this spectacular ecosystem were too stupid to grasp the long-term damage they were doing for the sake of comparatively short-term economic gain that’s now largely run its course.
That’s what we ponder in Popular Wisdom this week through a recent article that says humanity is not clever or evolved enough to stop destroying the world it needs to survive. In the Opinion Page we have a more lighthearted examination of a couple of old Hummer commercials that pretty much say the same thing. On the other hand, in Good News we have the First Annual Toilet Summit and people swinging from trees in Good-‘ol-Boy country. These last two pieces, like the excavators above which are actually restoring the Meadowlands ecosystems, round out an argument this week that we really aren’t so stupid. Just greedy, desperate, shortsighted and, most importantly, willing to make right, however eventually, what we’ve done wrong. Nothing's black and white, as much as we want it to be, in NBN this week. Meadowlands pictures, except the garbage mound which we ripped off the internet, by Jake's Nature Studios. Thanks Jake, Great Work!
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Assorted Greenery
Press Releases That Could Be Stories
Report Shows that Eco-Aware Living is a Priority for 21st Century Dads New report by EcoFocus Worldwide says American dads are more concerned about teaching their kids about environmental awareness. It would be great if the study was done by an more impartial source. Then we might believe these two could be having a father-and-son about recycling.
USDA announces early sign-up for conservation programs in Massachusetts Last week when NBN talked about the all-too-often-overlooked great green things happening in this country, we failed to mention a lot of the really boring but crucial stuff. Programs like this one linked here, which instruct those who work the land how to do so more ecologically. These great programs are everywhere in every state. The results of all this hard work are going to start to add up.
The Deadly Problem of Poisonous Weeds The good folks over at the Weed Science Society of America have put together a warning list of poisonous plants we might otherwise mistake for salad greens. At least some folks might. These weeds are not to be confused with wild parsley.
While Researching for his Upcoming Book, Joe Lanyadoo Suddenly Realized that Evolution is Not a Theory of Creation We ask you: Who could pass up this press release? The author follows up this headline with this profundity: “Evolution is a theory of evolution, not a theory of creation.” Safe to say, Mr. Darwin would sign off on that. This guy sounds just a little desperate to us, but the points he raises might justify the four minutes and 10 seconds it takes to read. Yes we timed it, but didn’t include the first read which took about 10 minutes in order to understand it.
Assorted Headlines
Green Stories From Across The Globe
You can't explain away climate change Anyone accusing NBN of being too upbeat on the environment in recent weeks might want to take a look at this journalistic gem from the LA Times: record high land and water temperatures in June, first half of 2010 was the hottest such period ever recorded, and Arctic sea ice melted at a record-setting pace in June. This is not good news folks.
The oil spill no one's talking about: it’s getting cleaned up in China right now For that matter did anyone ever talk about these oil spills. The worst offshore oil spill in history, (off Kuwait surprise, surprise) could have covered Rhode Island one-foot deep. Maybe something good already came out of the gulf oil spill, more attention on all oil spills. Pictured here is the fourth worst oil spill in history off the Mexican coast in the 1980s. Who ever heard of the Ixtoc 1 platform explosion in 1979? Google it now, it's getting more publicity than it did when it happened
India unveils prototype of $35 tablet computer Welcome to the future gang. These will soon be in the hands of anyone not taking a shower as the virtual and real worlds continue to merge. Increasingly, we’ll be absorbing information from the real world and the virtual at the same time. If this makes no sense click on this link and it will. Hey, we can't do all the work around here.
Vegan Mainstream's Blog Sizzles This Summer as the Destination for Cutting-edge Vegan and Vegetarian Discussions and Laughs. Vegan humor? Hoo-boy, this press release stretches the credibility envelope. These are people voluntarily not eating the best testing food in the world. What could possible be funny about that? Beside, this link is the only funny joke anyone knows about vegetables.