Doctors from the University of California and the Boston Medical Center have released findings linking common chemical pollutants to at least 200 different human diseases. The study, which compiled data from hundreds of previous studies, shows strong correlations between various common pollutants and a wide range of diseases, including asthma, testicular atrophy, cerebral palsy, kidney disease, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, dermatitis bronchitis, hyperactivity, deafness, sperm damage and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Pollutants also were linked to 37 different types of cancers.

A recently released study of commuters in Shanghai, China shows that walking or bicycling to work may do more than minimize pollution and improve cardiovascular health. Researchers from the Maryland-based National Cancer Institute found that moderate day-to-day physical activity significantly reduced Shanghai residents’ chances of getting colon cancer.

I had the good fortune to speak at the Eco Metropolis conference in Manhattan in mid-November. Here was a useful focus on greening a city that is already pretty green. For instance, only 44 percent of city households include a car, the lowest rate among major cities in the U.S. (the most auto-dependent country in the world). Portland, Oregon and other big public transportation players can’t come close to that.

Much to the delight of environmentalists, the Bush administration has withdrawn a contentious proposal to drill for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) from its omnibus energy bill, which it hopes to push through Congress this session. The White House hopes to leverage the increased Republican majority in Congress for passage of the $31 billion bill, originally introduced three years ago.

The results of a recent national tally by the Trust for Public Land (TPL) buoyed the spirits of environmentalists disheartened by the recent re-election of George W. Bush: voters in 111 communities across 25 states, it turns out, passed ballot measures funding $11 billion for conservation, including $2.4 billion for protecting land for parks and open space.

Just three days after the presidential election, Sierra Club National Media Director Kerri Glover told <I>E</I>, "There is virtually no news organization that hasn’t called us and asked, ‘Don’t you think the environment is screwed under another four years of Bush?’" Glover says she wishes reporters and news anchors had made a bigger deal about environmental issues <I>before</I> the election, instead of after.