Word: could
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Warnings about nutrients left out of the diet are as grave as those about pollutants included. Scotch and beer have joined the list of potables that may contain dangerous chemicals. So has mother's milk, in which PCBS have turned up. Birth defects could be linked to caffeine from coffee or any source, it was reported just last month. Even peanut butter, as an occasional bearer of aflatoxin, has been flagged as a menace. Driving? Fasten the seat belt- unless discouraged by warnings that most of them do not work. On the road, even rest-room signs often gratuitously...
Only a recluse could fail to know somebody who uses less ingenuity in living than in worrying and guarding against subtle hazards. Perhaps the surest sign that the admonitory mood is taking a toll is the fact that Americans have begun to write advice columnists about the problems that all the cautions cause. Warnings about cholesterol in eggs, nitrate in bacon, caffeine in coffee (and, a while back, risky chemicals in even the decaffeinated variety) have sapped the fun out of eating breakfast for some people, it seems. Wrote one such: "I'd try bread and water...
...cost of electricity disappears round the bend, as heating oil levitates to 90˘ per gal. from about 55˘ a year ago, grubbing for firewood in a muddy forest does not seem such a bad idea. A few years ago, a good many Americans could not have said for sure what was being burned to keep them warm. Heat bills were often less than phone bills. Now, they not only know what heats their homes, but millions, particularly those who must use oil, are painfully aware that their bills will nearly double this winter over last year. Solar heating of water...
...plant. But doubts are rising about such large-scale woodburning. Huge chippers that swallow entire trees are used for harvesting; since they leave no small limbs to rot and replenish the forest, the practice can amount to mining the thin topsoil. "In 50 years," says one observer, "New England could look like Lebanon." President Nick Muller of Colby-Sawyer College in New London, N.H., has another sort of woodburning in mind. He wants to build a $1.75 million central heating plant fueled by sawdust from nearby sawmills. Sawdust is cheap, burns cleanly and has much heating power. Muller, a historian...
...such tiny projects as tinkering?as it is easy to dismiss the wood-stove phenomenon. Crab wastes and the body heat of chickens are not going to save postindustrial America (though Ecologist Barry Com- moner believes that methane, generated from a wide variety of wastes and especially grown crops, could stretch declining natural gas supplies and help the U.S. bridge the 50-year period before it can achieve what he thinks possible: a completely solar-powered society). But the Department of Energy does not dismiss such ideas?and there may be wisdom here. What the woodburners and the backyard inventors...