Where the wild things were. As a species we have a complex relationship with predators, whether large cats, bears, wolves, sharks, or killer whales. It’s a mixture of deep-seated fear and loathing, along with time-honored respect and admiration. A review of Will Stolzenburg’s Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators. — The Green Skeptic

Choosing between crops or water. Global food shortages have placed the Middle East and North Africa in a quandary, as they are forced to choose between growing more crops to feed an expanding population or preserving their already scant supply of water. — NYT

The bottled water backlash. Grist interviews journalist Journalist Elizabeth Royte, author of Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It, on hydration myths, anti-bottle mayors, and water snobbery. — Grist

Wetland destruction could unleash ‘carbon bomb’. The development and draining of wetlands for agricultural land is releasing large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, threatening to set off what scientists are calling a “carbon bomb.” Meeting at an international wetlands conference in Brazil, the scientists said that peat bogs, marshes, river deltas, swamps, mangroves, tundra, and other wetlands contain 20 percent of Earth’s carbon.– Yale Environment 360