EarthTalk Q&A: Expert Answers on Environmental & Sustainability Topics

It’s everywhere. In health clubs. At work. At home. In backpacks. At conferences and althetic events. Once considered a yuppie refreshment, bottled water has become a liquid asset for today’s active consumer–and a gushing $2.7 billion-a-year national industry. One out of six people in America is drinking more than eight gallons annually of bottled water–five times more than a decade ago. According to the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), 60 percent of those who drink bottled water do so for taste. But the perception that it’s purer, healthier, and safer also boosts sales, especially in parched California, which drinks up 36 percent of the market share.

Since the beginning of life on EArth, the oceans have been the ecological keel of the biosphere. The marine environment, from the brackish waters where rivers flow into the sea to the deepest depths, constitutes roughly 90 percent of the world’s inhabitated space. The oceans cover nearly 71 percent of the Earth’s surface, and their deepest trenches plunge lower below sea level than Mount Everest climbs above it. They hold 97 percent of the water on Earth, more than 10,000 times as much water as all the world’s freshwater lakes and rivers combined.

Art Graham is the very model of a socially responsible businessman. His business diverts garbage from the landfill, his plants obey emissions guidelines to the letter, and a framed certificate from former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) director William Reilly, commending him for service to the environment, hangs in the lobby of his factory. But here’s the catch: His business isn’t making compost, rahabilitating discarded wine bottles, or being entrepreneurial in any of the other ways beloved by environmentalists. His business is melting and reshaping polystyrene, better known by the brand name Styrofoam, into plastic "popcorn" shipping pellets.

John Schaeffer started out as an "urban refugee" living on a remote commune in California in the 1970’s. Tired of life without electricity, Schaeffer, a tinkerer, hooked up a solar-powerd television in his home–and he’s been finding innovative ways to introduce mainstream America to renewable energy ever since.

Unfortunately, it is true that women all around the world have dioxins in their breast milk. In fact, most people—not just women—have detectable levels of dioxin in their tissues, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

My two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Natalie loves to "wash the dishes," which is to say that she stands at the sink, holds a container under running water until it overflows and the empties it. She repeats this procedure over and over, inevitable getting soaked and spilling water all over the kitchen floor. When I finally tell her it’s time to stop, her disappointment is so acute that the tears seem to stream down her face with almost as much forces as the water coming out of the faucet.

There are two Arubas. One is a shining island jewel of white sand and blue-green surf in the Dutch Caribbean, a casino-driven magnet for American tourists, American hotel chains and every conceivable fast-food restaurant, from McDonald’s to Dunkin Donuts.