"Barbara Kingsolver's novel, 'Flight Behavior,' opens with a scenario that could have been ripped from a Harlequin Romance: Dellarobia Turnbow, a restless young housewife in rural Feathertown, Tenn., is walking into the woods to meet a man who is not her husband. Things take a turn, as they always do in fiction. But this turn is not the usual one."
"Most livestock moved across state lines will have to be identified and tracked under a U.S. Department of Agriculture rule that aims to rapidly trace diseased animals to their origin."
"In a letter sent Wednesday, a pair of nuclear engineers -- one of them an employee at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- implored outgoing Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) to use his remaining days as chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs to investigate potential threats at two nuclear power facilities."
"With fishery regulators poised to impose devastating cuts Thursday on the New England fleet, blame for the disappearance of once-abundant cod and flounder populations is shifting from fishermen to a new culprit: the changing ocean."
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release new pollution caps for industrial boilers and cement plants, as it bows to industry pressure to delay their effective date and ease some standards, according to environmental and business groups."
"The Lancet recently unveiled a major overview of global health risks -- and one of the most eye-catching papers highlighted just how deadly air pollution has become over the past two decades."
"Across the U.S. Midwest, homeowners are restoring their yards and former farmland to the native prairie that existed in pre-settlement days. The benefits can be substantial -- maintenance that uses less water and no fertilizer, and an ecosystem that supports wildflowers and wildlife."
"Ruling in a bitterly contested case with national ramifications, a federal judge found Thursday that the Waterkeeper Alliance failed to prove that an Eastern Shore farm's chicken houses were polluting a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay."
Award-winning ScientificAmerican.com associate editor David Biello has been reporting on the environment and energy since 1999. He is the host of the 60-Second Earth podcast, a contributor to the Instant Egghead video series, author of a children's book on bullet trains, and hosts the PBS documentary series Beyond the Light Switch. Read Biello's comments on the state of environmental journalism and the value of SEJ to its member-journalists.
The Texas Observer published on December 11, 2012 a deeply flawed story about SEJ's 2012 conference. Please see below for SEJ's formal response through letters to the Observer's editor and publisher, from SEJ President Don Hopey and Board Member Roger Witherspoon, setting the record straight, and replies received from Texas Observer editor Dave Mann.
