USDA Organic: Ecopornography or a Label Worth Searching For?

Ecopornography,” more commonly known as greenwashing, is a term that applies to any entity that disseminates disinformation in order to promote an environmentally friendly public image without actually taking significant action to protect the environment. Greenwashing is pervasive and a nearly unavoidable component of consumers’ evaluations of potential purchases. Food producers and packagers are often guilty of greenwashing their products to appeal to the environmentally conscious consumer by using such terms as “free range” or “all natural.” The United States Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) has set standards for the use of the word “organic” on food labels. These standards, while significantly more meaningful than those behind the “free range” label, are by no means the most stringent in the world. Is the USDA organic label indicative of an environmentally friendly product or is it greenwashing

Aquaponics & Landfill Methane Use: These Fetid Miasmata Smell Like Profitable Conservation

This article outlines the basic processes involved in aquaponics and landfill methane utilization and then proposes that more synergistic systems should be developed and then implemented on a larger scale to minimize total human waste output. Aquaponics is a sustainable practice because the waste of one system is used to fuel another symbiotic system and the only input is the fish food

Putting Aeolus to Work Without the Death Toll: Federal Wind Farm Siting Guidelines Can Mitigate Avian and Chiropteran Mortality

Wind energy will undoubtedly be a part of America’s future, and this Article examines a set of federal guidelines for siting wind farms. The Wind Turbine Guidelines Advisory Committee Guidelines (WTGAC Guidelines) use an iterative decision-making process to help site wind farms while minimizing the negative impacts to avian and chiropteran species. In particular, the Guidelines provide a head start on the data collection necessary for compliance with the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act

Livestock Animal Cloning: This Steak Is Giving Me Déjà Vu

Somatic cell nuclear transfer, more commonly known as cloning, received international attention when scientists introduced Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal ever successfully cloned using an adult cell. In many American minds, cloning evokes Frankensteinian images of mad scientists and their quest to throw off the shackles of nature’s limitations. In the real world, cloning probably only shares one trait with the trials and tribulations of science fiction’s most memorable characters: an enormously high rate of failure