EarthTalk Q&A

With more than 6,000 stores spread out across the globe—Wal-Mart is the world’s biggest retailer, hands down, and also a magnet for criticism for its low wages, inadequate health coverage and effect on struggling downtowns

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines wetlands as “lands where saturation with water is the dominant factor determining the nature of soil development and the types of plant and animal communities living in the soil and on its surface.

Researchers are looking into the possibility that Alzheimer’s and Mad Cow Disease are somehow related manifestations of the same type of infection.

<B><U>Dear EarthTalk:</U> Now that the school year is starting, how can I pack lunches for my kids that are less wasteful of packaging?</B>

Dear EarthTalk: Is there a connection between Mad Cow Disease and Alzheimer"s?

For those with chemical sensitivities, the home is sometimes anything but a refuge. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as formaldehyde can “off-gas” from carpets, wallpaper and paints, irritating lungs and promoting headaches and itchy eyes.

Climate change accelerates the spread of disease primarily because warmer global temperatures enlarge the geographic range in which disease-carrying animals, insects and microorganisms—as well as the germs and viruses they carry—can survive.

Would removing dams in the Pacific Northwest allow the wild salmon that used to thrive there return to their former abundance?