E Word

The numbers tell it all. In 1995, according to the Nexis data base, there were 24,142 U.S. newspaper stories about O.J. Simpson, and 1,592 about what is arguably a bigger threat to mankind-global warming.

I’m appalled at the NIMBY ("not-in-my-back-yard") opposition to wind power projects like Cape Wind in Massachusetts. How do these graceful wind turbines destroy our view? Are they worse than the endless power lines that stretch across the country, the coal plants and oil refineries, the offshore oil rigs and tankers (and their spills), and the ominous nuclear towers that have become symbols of another impending Chernobyl?

It’s called "conservation medicine," but perhaps a better name would be "conservation health." The science is complex, but most people would find the theory intuitive: Human health is fragile, and dependent upon the larger world around it. Yes, it is about AIDS, SARS, mad cow, West Nile, malaria and monkeypox, but it is also about the interconnectedness of all life and the fact that human behavior has consequences.

There’s hardly an issue where Bush’s rhetoric isn’t diametrically opposite to his actual policies. This is especially true in his doublespeak on women’s issues. While Bush proclaims, "the advance of liberty and the advance of women’s rights are ultimately inseparable," he pursues an ideologically motivated anti-choice agenda at the expense of women’s lives and the planet.

As with the highly questionable intelligence alleging Iraqi weapons of mass-destruction that led us into war, hunting continues on the strength of some long-debunked myths, thanks to leaders who kowtow to the gun industry, the National Rifle Association and others.

A recent University of California-Berkeley study found that information stored electronically grew by a whopping 80 percent between 1999 and 2002. And even though less than one tenth of one percent of that data was printed, the amount of printed matter still grew by 36 percent during that same period. Not surprisingly, the U.S. is the biggest paper muncher, accounting for 33 percent of all printed material.

It’s a no-brainer, really: You get the big guys—governments, hospitals, universities, big corporations, everyone who buys in volume—to demand green products and attributes. As a result, suppliers are forced to green up their products if they want the business. Thus they invest in doing so, and the resulting sales volume creates a large-enough production of […]

“The combination of rampant poaching…and unabated habitat loss…has intensified the threats to the survival of healthy wild populations.” The quote is from a report on saving the tiger, but it could just as easily have referred to rhinos, giant pandas, or a variety of other endangered species. These two factors have put a long list […]

I have two daughters, ages four and seven, and the girls were on my mind as I was editing this issue’s comprehensive package on children’s environmental health. I think my wife and I do a reasonable job of protecting them from harm: We walk them to the school bus, make sure they look both ways […]

Alongside re-making big buildings, we ought to be laying the foundation for a clean energy future, one that will end our oil dependency that so profoundly figures into world tensions and the continued destruction of the global environment.