The USDA says the number of winter farmers markets rose 38% from 2010 to 2011; 17% the year before. Coverage can include local foods, family-owned vs. corporate enterprises, validity of claims about being family-owned and/or local, food inspections, quality control, state, FDA and USDA regulations, immigration, unemployment, and career changes.
"The standard 100-watt light bulb is going away, and its lower-wattage cousins are soon to follow."
"WINFIELD, W.Va. -- Putnam County jurors chosen to sit in the upcoming case against Monsanto, a former Nitro chemical plant, will have to decide whether thousands of current and former Nitro residents should be periodically tested for disease at the expense of the company."
"OAKLAND, Md. -- The first natural gas well has yet to be drilled into the Marcellus shale deposits underlying Western Maryland, but ripples already are being felt here from an industry that has brought wealth — and controversy — in neighboring states where drilling has proceeded apace."
A British police investigation and the release of new e-mails are prompting pointed speculation about who hacked, stole, and leaked private emails from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia.
"Climate change dropped even further from the world's headlines and newscasts last year. Weird weather, Australia's carbon tax and Solyndra fracas weren't enough to stem a decline that started in 2009."
Leading environmental news aggregator EHN picks Fukushima meltdown, fracking controversy, the Keystone XL pipeline, widespread bisphenol A exposures, and the Obama White House's environmental ambivalence as top stories by sheer volume in 2011 media coverage.
"Efforts by developed countries to redistribute promised funds to help poorer parts of the world avoid environmental disasters have been described as 'dismal' by the foreign minister of Bangladesh."
"The longtime practice of dumping huge rocks and chunks of concrete along the coastline to stop erosion is coming under fire from those who favor letting the shoreline retreat naturally. San Francisco's efforts to protect Ocean Beach is the latest battleground."
"D&L Energy Inc. is best known for its brine-injection well in the city that is suspected of triggering 11 Mahoning Valley earthquakes this year. But a Vindicator investigation conducted prior to the well shutdown Friday and Saturday’s magnitude-4.0 earthquake revealed the company has a history of at least 120 violations at 32 injection and extraction wells in Ohio and Pennsylvania during the past decade."
