EarthTalk Q&A

Letter carriers may have bad weather and biting dogs to deal with, but back at the mail sorting facilities, postal workers often face one of the byproducts of the increased mechanization of sorting facilities: paper dust, which can trigger asthma,

Environmentalists” call for an end to the age of coal—one of the dirtiest and most common of all the fossil fuels we now use—took on new urgency this past December when some 525 million gallons of wet coal ash, enough toxic slurry to flood more than 3,000 acres of nearby land,

The experts prefer galvanized steel, copper and aluminum gutters for longer life and therefore lower environmental as well as financial cost. Stay away from PVC (polyvinyl chloride), which is hazardous to human health and the environment.

Easily exploited by hunters, whalers and fishermen in the 19th century, Hawaiian monk seals essentially never recovered. As early as 1976, the Hawaiian monk seal was listed as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. The species is also on the International Union

Different countries do have differing standards in regard to how much pollution gasoline and diesel automobile engines are allowed to emit, but the reason you see so fewer diesel cars in the U.S. is more of a choice by automakers than the product of a decree by regulators on either side of the Atlantic.

A 2007 assessment by the United Nations Environment Program predicts that orangutans will be virtually eliminated from the wild within two decades if current trends continue. The animals, which live almost entirely in trees, are threatened by

While there will always be a place for high-quality sunscreen on body parts exposed to the sun, covering up elsewhere—ideally with clothing designed to absorb or shield the sun”s damaging ultraviolet (UV) radiation—can minimize a person”s skin cancer risk significantly.

I keep meeting people who say that human-induced global warming is only theory, that just as many scientists doubt it as believe it.

Despite all the modern health and safety guidelines they must follow, gas stations can still pose significant hazards to neighbors, especially children. Some of the perils include ground-level ozone caused in part by gasoline fumes, groundwater