Green Gazette

Image Gallery Atrazine and other herbicides are affecting the development and mating habits of leopard frogs.

Seeking a Simpler Season

If, at the holidays, you find yourself hatching an escape plan to avoid a season of stress—and gift-giving gone gonzo—you're not alone. According to a national survey, two-thirds of Americans would welcome less emphasis on shopping and spending. In the spirit of a simpler season, we offer the organizations listed below, which provide perfectly practical ways you can reach for the real joy.

Christmas Gift Exemption Vouchers; www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd/toolbox/voucher.html . Print out these certificates to relieve recipients of any gift-giving obligations.

Center for the New American Dream; (301) 891-3683; www.newdream.org/holiday/home.htm . Tips for simplifying the holidays, alternative gift-giving and alternative Christmas carols.

Alternative Gifts International; (800) 842-2243. Share your goodwill globally. Donate in a friend's or a family member's name and help Tanzanian communities buy tools for solar water purification, support inner-city gardening programs in America, and much more.

Buy Nothing Day, November 29, 2002; www.adbusters.org/campaigns/bnd/ or www.buynothingday.co.uk . Instead of following the flock of shopping sheep to the malls, dedicate this day to supporting a valuable cause, working on a special project or just reading a good book like Bill McKibben's Hundred Dollar Holiday (see MOTHER'S Bookshelf on Page 88).

RichGiving; www.richgiving.com . Suggests how to give gifts of yourself, for the soul and for the future.

A Croaking Conundrum

These days, it's not a clear-cut case of "he said-she said" when it comes to frog-mating. Many male frogs may be singin' the blues, unable to attract a female with their connubial calls for coupling.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found male frogs with diminished vocal organs, as well as ovaries in their testes. The cause, says developmental endocrinologist Tyrone Hayes, Ph.D., is atrazine, an herbicide commonly used on corn, soybeans and other crops in the Midwest and around the world for almost a half-century.

Hayes and his colleagues report that atrazine levels typically found in the environment (which are usually below Environmental Protection Agency standards for drinking water) turn tadpoles into hermaphrodites (having both female and male characteristics), and also reduce testosterone hormones in adult males.

These frogs' feminized fate could signal that the herbicide is subtly affecting human sex hormones, especially in human males. In high doses, this herbicide has the potential to cause cancer.

Atrazine's breakdown products can persist in lakes and groundwater for decades. Water treatment cannot entirely remove the herbicide. France, Germany and Italy are among several countries that have banned its use.