The Environment in Focus with Tom Pelton

An apple tree grows in a city park, producing apples that are delicious and healthy but marred with ugly black blotches.  In this essay, the author suggests that most apples would look like this without pesticides, suggesting that our modern idea of beauty is achieved through chemical warfare on nature.

In a case that sent shock waves through the biodiesel industry, a federal jury has convicted a biodiesel manufacturer, Rodney Hailey of Baltimore County-based Clean Green Fuel, of fraud for pocketing $9 million selling 23 million gallons of biofuel that did not exist. The case raised questions about the federal alternative fuel credit trading program that Hailey manipulated. Prosecutors said Hailey used the money to buy luxury cars including the Lamborghini above, as well as diamonds and real estate.

The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center's DOOM lab (Dissolved Oxygen and Oyster Mortality) is examining how oysters respond to sudden drops in oxygen levels in shallow parts of the Chesapeake Bay at night. These fluctuations are partially natural, but appear to be made worse by nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. Oxygen depletion may make oysters more susceptible to a disease called Dermo.

David Hackenburg, a Pennsylvania beekeeper and president of a trade group called the Honey Bee Health Advisory Board, says he and other beekeepers across the country have seen significant declines in bee populations over the last decade. A new study in the scientific journal Nature links widespread bee deaths to the use of a crop pesticides called neonicotinoids since the 1990s, although other factors may be at work, too.