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Issue # 99 - May/June 1986

Home Rule

The National Alliance of Homebased Businesswomen (NAHB) has developed a model zoning ordinance for home businesses. The model is designed to allow home businesses the same privileges as other businesses while protecting the residential character of a neighborhood. Send $2.00 to NAHB, P.O. Box 306, Midland Park, NJ 07432, for a copy of the ordinance.

Sans Tube

The Committee on Nationwide Television Audience Measurement has noted an increase in the percentage of American households without a television. The number of telly-less homes increased from 2.9% in 1982 to 4.3% today.

Bad News

According to a recent issue of Science News , an EPA-funded study indicates that "there is a link between exposure to poisonous doses of agricultural pesticides known as organophosphates and a number of neuropsychological problems, including depression, irritability, and difficulty in thinking, memory, and communication." Organophosphates have been widely used for decades; a particularly toxic oneparathionis thought to be responsible for half of all pesticide poisonings in the world today.

More Bad News

Despite the poisonings—of both humans and the environment—pesticide use is often promoted by aid agencies and governments of developing countries that provide chemical subsidies to farmers. A study by the World Resources Institute has found that hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually to subsidize the sale of pesticides to growers in developing nations. When the cost of using the dangerous chemicals is heavily discounted, farmers choose them over more laborintensive, but environmentally safer, methods of pest control.

Good News

There is an increasing awareness of the harm caused by environmentally detrimental "aid" to developing countries. Legislation passed late in 1985 requires U.S. representatives to the World Bank and three other development banks to work for environmental reforms in the banks' lending policies. Science News magazine reports that the U.S. executive directors of these banks must now actively promote such practices as "the hiring of more professionally trained staf to identify potential ecological impacts of projects up for funding, the involvement of conservation groups and native-peoples' organizations in the planning of environmentally sensitive projects, and more funding of `environmentally beneficial' projects such as agroforestry, integrated pest management, and rural solar energy systems."

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