I shared dinner recently with a group including a smartly dressed soon-to-be law student. The conversation turned, as if often seems to do at dinner parties these days,  to the merits of organic food. She started complaining about some of her school friends. They were so much into the whole/ organic/local food thing that she thought they were sort of snobby about it. She didn’t like the way they acted superior about their diets and one-upped each other about their food purity and turned up their noses when she ordered beef. She was sick of what she called their “holier-than-thou attitudes.”

Then she talked about the place where they shopped, one of those gorgeous Wild Oats kind of stores where everything seems to be GMO-free and organic and  artfully presented and costs a lot. The store is in a trendy urban area. The parking lot is full of expensive cars.  “An elitist grocery experience,” she said.

“That’s what’s so frustrating about having conversations with people who are into organic: It’s not about the food,” she concluded. “It’s about separating yourself. It’s a class issue.”

Interesting. I certainly fall into the demographic she was complaining about. I try to eat healthy, and have talked quite a bit about the pros and cons of locavorism, polyculture, cage-free eggs and grass-fed animals. It is true that organic is now upscale and you don’t find a Wild Oats in poor parts of town (in poor parts of town, you find McDonalds), and the gorgeous local produce at our weekend farmers market costs about as much as steak.  I can see why some people, especially those without a lot of money, might look at organic as overpriced veggies hawked to overpriviliged people.

On the other hand, I know a lot of people with limited means who really believe that you are what you eat, and who choose to spend a larger chunk of what income they have on food that is both healthier for them and grown in ways that are better for the planet.

Point is this: We face serious food problems in the world. A billion people go to bed hungry every night. We don’t need to waste our energy turning food into more of a class issue than it already is. It is a shame that organic food and other fresher, healthier alternatives are too expensive for a lot of poor people.

What we need to do, I think, is stop worrying about labels and dietary dogma, and start working toward food parity: that is to say, equal access to healthy food for everyone.  That’s a huge order, and will involve complex efforts directed toward finding better ways to grow, distribute, and provide nutrient-rich food (not empty calories) to rich and poor alike.

Good food can not and should not be restricted to the elite.

One of my favorite early scientists, Robert Boyle, offers this charming list of goals for scientists, from the 1660s.

The Prolongation of Life.

The Recovery of Youth, or at least some of the Marks of it, as new Teeth, new Hair colour’d as in youth.

The Art of Flying.

The Art of Continuing long under water, and exercising functions freely there.

The Cure of Wounds at a Distance.

The Cure of Diseases at a distance or at least by Transplantation.

The Attaining Gigantick Dimensions.

The Emulating of Fish without Engines by Custome and Education only.

The Acceleration of the Production of things out of Seed.

The Transmutation of Metalls.

The makeing of Glass Malleable.

The Transmutation of Species in Mineralls, Animals, and Vegetables.

The Liquid Alkaest and Other dissolving Menstruums.

The making of Parabolicall and Hyperbolicall Glasses.

The making Armor light and extremely hard.

The practicable and certain way of finding Longitudes.

The use of Pendulums at Sea and in Journeys, and the Application of it to watches.

Potent Druggs to alter or Exalt Imagination, Waking, Memory, and other functions, and appease pain, procure innocent sleep, harmless dreams, etc.

A Ship to saile with All Winds, and A Ship not to be Sunk.

Freedom from Necessity of much Sleeping exemplify’d by the Operations of Tea and what happens in Mad-Men.

Pleasing Dreams and physicall Exercises exemplify’d by the Egyptian Electuary and by the Fungus mentioned by the French Author.

Great Strength and Agility of Body exemplify’d by that of Frantick Epileptick and Hystericall persons.

A perpetuall Light.

Varnishes perfumable by Rubbing.

A beautiful photo collection of people reading around the world.

OK — while debate continues over just how fast the oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill is dispersing, some thoughts on perspective.

Compare the Deepwater spill to these figures, based on a number of sources and used in an exhibit by the Smithsonian.

Deepwater is estimated to have released somewhere around 210 million gallons into the ocean.

Check that number against those in the link? That’s right.  Every year,  we dump more than 360 million gallons of oil into the ocean from our storm drains — most of it from road runoff and oil changes. And that’s a 15-year-old estimate, so the figure is probably higher now.  Let me know if you find newer information.

Add that to the 137 million gallons released into the ocean from routine maintenance — bilge cleaning of ships and so forth — and you come up with this:

Every twenty weeks, we spew a Deepwater Horizon’s worth of oil into the world’s oceans  — without giving it a thought.

But, as Dr. Tittle points out in the comments, crude is not the same as processed oil, and Deepwater Horizon was a single source event affecting a single marine area, while the other numbers are global, spreading around the pollution.

Like this excellent post says: It’s time to get beyond debates about  “organic” vs “conventional” and move toward developing an agriculture that is better than either: highly productive while at the same time highly sustainable, good for our health and good for the planet, wisely using resources while getting food equitably to poor and rich.  This is a reachable goal, but not if we get mired down in debating categories.  I like a lot of things about organic farming, but it’s not a cure-all. GMO is not a cure-all. Local farming is not a cure-all. Industrial agriculture is not a cure-all. We need to use the best of each.

Genetically modified canola spreads in Midwest.

Media chatter in the past few weeks spurred by the “Pepsigate” exodus from scienceblogs.com has focused attention on “science bloggers” – whatever those are.

I guess I’m one of them. The problem is, there’s no such thing – at least not in the singular. Instead, “science blogger” is a conglomerate term used loosely to describe people who fall into one or another of several categories:

1) Scientists who use the internet. Some of these professionals relay and get feedback on research questions; some push an agenda; some vent about their lives and jobs; some act more like science journalists, providing context and commentary for non-scientists.
2) Science journalists who use the internet. This group, some working for media companies, some freelancers, generally relay news of scientific findings, occasionally with discussion.
3) Corporate and nonprofit PR types exploring ways to profit or raise their groups’ profiles on the internet.
4) Activists using science to promote an agenda.
5) Science fans blogging about their favorite disciplines.

There are probably others. Point is, though, that little is gained from lumping together such a disparate group, given the differences in their backgrounds and goals.

Instead, we should throw out the term “science blogger” — too loose, too squishy — and substitute simpler, more descriptive ones, like “scientist,” “science journalist,” “PR writer,” or whatever. Yes, these terms can be a little vague, too (who’s to say who gets to call themselves a “science journalist”?) but it’s a start.

I’ll go first: I am a science writer.

One of my favorite science-writer-type sites, KSJ Tracker, ran a good summary today of recent news reports that — gasp! — the long-term effects of the Gulf oil spill are not going to be as bad as most people feared. They were nice enough to mention my earlier posts (here and here). Thanks for the nod, KSJT.

Will e-books kill printed books?

Ummm. . . on brief reflection, no. On a little more reflection, hell no. In fact, e-books might save the printed book.

Buried in Amazon’s release about skyrocketing Kindle book sales was the fact that while Amazon’s Kindle e-book sales were up, so were hardcover sales. More e-books and more hardcovers sold, both at the same time. Hmm. . .

That’s just on Amazon. But traditional print publishing is having a very good year overall.  Traditional book publisher’s sales are up almost 10 percent over last year, driven by strong sales in the Adult Hardcover category. Take a look at that link, which goes to a release from the Association of American Publishers. According to their stats, at the same time e-book sales were rocketing, adult trade hardcover (those are the new books you see in bookstores) was also zooming along, with sales up more than 20 percent over last year. Of course, last year’s sales were dismal, but hmm. . . .

A few days ago Knopf announced that Kindle sales for Stieg Larsson’s most recent book, “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest,” have topped sales of the hardcover. More than a million of Larsson’s three thrillers have sold in e-book versions. But – and here’s the important part — at the same time that a million people downloaded the e-book, sales of the author’s books are also setting records in paperback and audio. Hardcover sales of the most recent entry, the publisher said, had not been hurt by the  e-edition.

Final bit of info to throw into the mix: What’s true for publishers also appears to be true for booksellers.  One recent study of the nation’s 51 largest independent bookstores found sales steady through the first six months of this year. This is encouraging news. People don’t go into their local independent bookstore to buy an e-book.

OK — good stats in this industry are hard to come by, so I have to patch together bits and pieces like this, which do no more than hint at a possible trend. But it’s pretty interesting to think that e-books might help revitalize the old print book industry. Remember how the movie industry has moaned for 100 years  about every new development — TV is going to kill the movies! VHS is going to kill the movies! DVDs are going to kill the movies! — but in fact, all those new technologies simply increased the number of people who watch movies? Maybe something similar is happening with books.

In other words, It’s beginning to look like e-books, instead of cannibalizing sales from traditional print books, might revive  interest in reading, bring in new eyes, open up the market to people who might not otherwise read a book at all.

By expanding the universe of readers, e-books might save book publishing.

Remember paper and ink? We used to read things on it. Not like you’re doing now, on your computer, or phone, or iPad, or whatever. For free.

Well, in case you haven’t noticed, print’s pretty much over. The latest evidence, at least when it comes to books, is in this news release from Amazon.com saying that its Kindle e-books are now outselling hardcovers.

First thing is, take it with a giant grain of salt. It’s a big, steaming piece of corporate PR cleverly written to make it sound like e-book sales have overtaken hardcovers. But it only applies to one kind of e-book out of many (Amazon’s proprietary Kindle e-books, sold only through Amazon, originally readable on a device sold only by Amazon). Nowhere does it say how many of anything – Kindle books, Kindle devices, hardcovers, whatever – have been sold, only how sales compare with each other. I love the verbiage about the increased interest in Kindle devices – “the growth rate has tripled” – which sounds like they’re selling three times as many machines, but really means. . . . what? That last year’s growth rate was 1 percent and this year’s is 3 percent? Or is it 50 percent and 150 percent? We’ll never know. Nor do we know what they mean by growth rate. What about the Kindle book numbers? A lot of Kindle downloads are free – are they counting those downloads among their “sales”?

The real purpose of the PR blast is this: Amazon wants to shore up its Kindle house brand in the face of all-out attacks from Apple’s iBooks and Google’s soon-to-launch Google Editions. Amazon versus Google versus Apple: It’s like one of those old Godzilla versus Megalon movies.

The monsters of the web world are battling because they understand that the e-book market is big and is going to get bigger. There’s a lot of money to be made, and they want it.

Most writers I know still consider e-books an interesting sidelight, not a big deal. You hear a lot of, “I’m just not into e-books,” and “I just love real books,” and “I can’t stand reading on my computer.” Or maybe writers don’t care because as of a few weeks ago e-books only constituted somewhere around 5-10 percent of the book market (although it could be half that, or twice — good numbers are hard to come by).

They don’t yet see that the old publishing world is crumbling about them. As a long-time author with a vested interest in the print paradigm, I have been watching this trend with a sort of dread fascination, and I can tell you this: The e-book revolution is real, it’s here, and it is going to change everything, from what is written to which companies publish it to how agents work to who’s going to be able to make a living in literature.

Bottom line is stark: paper and ink books are on the way out. There, I said it. Printed books will still exist – like vinyl records still exist, in vanishingly small numbers, bought by collectors. Printed books – especially hardcovers — will become collectibles. Too many trends are working against print: (1) market economics (e-books are cheaper to produce, ship, and buy); (2) reader convenience (e-books offer immediate delivery, lower price, and bells and whistles like the ability to enlarge text); and (3) electronic infrastructure (a growing number of people are comfortable reading on little screens, they can do it on multiple devices (I just read my first book on my iPod Touch and the experience was fine), the little screens are getting better and cheaper and more attractive, the large-scale computing and communications systems are in place). And the technology just keeps getting better and cheaper. Three years ago, the first Kindle cost $399. Today’s improved version sells for half that. Eventually we’ll have screens you can roll up, put in your pocket, and unfurl as you lay on the couch, like the evening paper (but in full color, with video, web access, and no ink stains).

I know, I know, what about the innate wonderfulness of printed books? I’ve heard a lot during the past few months about the sweet smell and delightful heft of printed books. I love print books, too. But I am tempering my love with a dose of realism. Information is going to move to e-books. Printed books will increasingly become, what, Furniture? Antiques? Objets d’art?

Book publishers are beginning to wake up. Publicly, the old “Big Six” trade publishers are assuring everyone that print will be here forever. Privately, they’re scrambling to find ways to adapt. Agents are fighting to get better e-deals for their writers. Big bricks-and-mortar bookstores are dying and, in ten or twenty years, will be dead (check profit numbers at Barnes & Noble and Borders for the past few years. They are going to start shuttering stores soon). Small booksellers have already gone through one round of extinction; now they’re likely to experience another. Think of them like the little neighborhood video stores that used to be everywhere, but have, for the most part, vanished.

That’s for starters. The whole industry is going to change. Basically, the old print-book model, like all printing, works on economies of scale: The more copies of a book you print, the cheaper each copy is to produce (much of the expense of book printing comes from initially setting up the plates and press; once the presses start rolling, everything gets cheaper). Economies of scale are why publishers depend on sales of a few big blockbuster books to cover the losses from all those little books that never sell more than a few thousand copies.

What happens as e-books hit is this: People buy e-books instead of print books, so fewer print books are sold, so fewer need to be printed, so publishers lose their economies of scale. As print books become more expensive to produce, profit margins – already thin in this industry – shrink even more. That means smaller advances for most authors. More betting on a few big books, less betting on chancy projects. Smaller publishing lists. As fewer print books are published, fewer people will have reasons to go to bookstores, and as bookstores go under, there will be fewer options for buying print. So sales will fall even more. It’s a vicious cycle. Couple this with the alarming decline in newspaper book reviews, purse-string tightening at libraries, and increasing energy costs (which affect the cost of shipping all those books), and you can see what happens. If you want more details on this particular vision of literary apocalypse, look here.

But it’s not all bad news. In fact, it will be very good news for a lot of people. I’ll look at that later.

[This is a draft of a piece I wrote for an upcoming issue of Lauren's online nonfiction magazine, Etude]