Are We Ignoring the Early Warning Signs of Global Warming? Pasqual Gorriz / AP Wide World Photos Could bad weather be more than bad luck? Were the droughts, disease outbreaks, wildfires and floods brought on by the great El Ni?o weather event of 1997-98 more than just the chance result of our variable global climate? […]
Protection Varies at America’s 12 Marine Reserves Galyn C. Hammond The wind muffles his speech as Ed Cassano, manager of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, looks out from his 56-foot research vessel Ballena. He gazes onto the broad Pacific waters that nurture the largest concentration of blue whales in the world—not to mention plentiful […]
When the great naturalist Aldo Leopold first set eyes on the Colorado River delta in 1922, he saw what he called “a milk and honey wilderness” full of “a hundred green lagoons.” Leopold would find that landscape utterly changed today. The mighty Colorado no longer flows this far south; as Sandra Postel, director of the […]
The planet has been blessed with more freshwater than we could ever possibly need. But because this abundant resource is distributed unevenly on the planet, we are starting to run up against the limits of available freshwater in many parts of the globe.
Water isn’t necessarily the only thing coming out of our faucets—harmful levels of lead, mercury and chlorine have also found their way into drinking water supplies. For many people, the solution to the question mark over their taps has been bottled water. 1994 Tom McCarthy / Photo Network Twenty years ago, the concept of marketing […]
People With Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) Are Becoming the New Homeless
A Surging Organic Industry Delivers Natural Wine–Without the Headaches Picture this: a moonlit night after a hard day, you pour yourself some wine, swirl it around the glass. Raising it slowly to your mouth, you notice the crisp redolence of fruit and accents of oak-spice. The wine’s fresh acidity coats the tongue, followed by an […]
The 10 Most Dangerous Toxins in Your Household It’s official: Staying home is hazardous to your health. Toxins found in the home injured 789,000 Americans between 1992 and 1995, and new research suggests that this figure is underestimated. Dan McCoy / Rainbow “Toxins in U.S. homes now account for 90 percent of all reported poisonings […]
Those white mustaches on the smiling faces of celebrities may be a clever way to promote the “milk does a body good” idea. But there’s nothing amusing about increasing evidence of much higher rates of breast and prostate cancers in people who have elevated levels of Insulin-Like Growth-Factor 1 (IGF-1), the hormone that increases milk […]
Whatever happened to that old television you set out on the curb? Most broken electronics and worn-out appliances end up in landfills. But in Europe, where recycling reigns and manufacturers bear a great responsibility for the products they make (a concept known as Extended Producer Responsibility), many appliances avoid the garbage dump. Could it happen […]
