Alex Shoumatoff
Alex Shoumatoff
Alexander "Alex" Shoumatoffis an American writer known for his literary journalism, nature and environmental writing, and books and magazine pieces about political and environmental situations and world affairs. He was a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine from 1978 to 1987, a founding contributing editor of Outside magazine and Condé Nast Traveler, and was the senior-most contributing editor to Vanity Fair since its re-inception in 1986 through 2015 before he pseudo retired. He is known for reporting from the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth4 November 1946
CountryUnited States of America
The usual way of growing cotton is highly petrochemical-intensive, requiring 110 pounds of nitrogen fertilizer per acre. Some of the fertilizer is broken down by soil bacteria into nitrate, a toxic and highly soluble chemical that can leach into groundwater or get washed into lakes, creating oxygenless dead zones.