The discovery of gold in the spiritually important Little Rocky Mountains in northern Montana is a curse that the Native-American community of Fort Belknap has lived with for more than 100 years. During the 19th century, the mountains were removed from the tribe’s reservation so prospectors could dig for gold. The community is still suffering, this time from the side effects of industrial-scale mining.
When most Americans think of Russian nature, they think of environmental catastrophe—Chernobyl, oil spills, pollution. Yet Russia, with one-eighth of the Earth’s land area, has one of the world’s premiere systems of strictly protected areas, called "zapovedniks." Few people outside Russia know of the system or its important part in sustaining the global ecological balance. Large tracts of virgin forest play a role in global ecology comparable to rain forests. Intact areas of wilderness allow large-scale animal migrations. Scientific data long collected in the zapovednik system could shed light on global climate change and ecological trends.
Could someone please tell me: When on Earth did water go from being an essential liquid upon which all life depends
to a commercial "beverage?"
The message is clear: Bottled water is "good" water, as opposed to that nasty, unsafe stuff that comes out of the tap. But in most cases tap water adheres to stricter purity standards than bottled water, whose source—far from a mountain spring—can be wells underneath industrial facilities. Indeed, 40 percent of bottled water began life as, well, tap water.
With tap water quality increasingly under fire in the court of public opinion, the market for home water filter systems has surged. Co-op America says consumers who are still concerned about their tap water, or who don’t like its taste, should consider filters over bottled water, since they are less ecologically harmful (and considerably cheaper per serving). Filters are reusable and result in less waste and transportation than bottled water.
The world is sharply divided in terms of access to safe hydration. Those who can afford it are guzzling ever-increasing numbers of designer water bottles, while half the world’s population lacks basic sanitation facilities, according to the United Nations (UN). Diseases caused by unsanitary water kill five to 12 million people a year, most of them women and children. A child dies every eight seconds from a preventable water-borne disease.
If you haven’t thought about how much water you’re drinking lately, you’re probably drinking enough, says Dr. Heinz Valtin, a retired professor and kidney specialist at the Dartmouth Medical School, who recently spent 10 months studying the question. Valtin cautions that drinking too much water may increase exposure to water-borne pollutants, and may increase the risk of water intoxification, also called hyponatremia, a sometimes fatal condition that is the result of replacing lost fluids much faster than sodium.
In the parental rush to provide children with only the healthiest, purest, most wholesome ingredients for life, many families opt to serve bottled water along with the mashed carrots and multi-grain Cheerios. Why? Because they’re worried about the contaminants in tap water, including fluoride. But fluoride is added to many bottled waters, and it also gets in some brands unintentionally. Critics say that people who drink bottled water aren’t getting enough fluoride.
As Americans, we spend about a quarter of our electricity budget on lighting, yet we’re surprisingly ignorant about the basic properties of the lightbulb, let alone the recent innovations in energy-saving lighting design that can cut consumer costs 30 to 60 percent a year.
Soymilk’s popularity has soared since the health benefits of soy have been widely publicized, and its taste was reformulated in recent years to appeal to Americans.
