EarthTalk Q&A

Conservation medicine (sometimes called “conservation health”) is a relatively new field of research that studies the links between human health, animals” health and the environment. One of its major fields of study is the emergence in recent decades of deadly diseases that have crossed over from animals to humans, including Mad Cow, AIDS, Lyme disease, SARS, avian flu and West Nile virus. Many of these plagues arose out of some form of human/animal contact in compromised ecosystems.

English Ivy is everywhere across the North American landscape, largely because it is an attractive, hearty and fast-growing groundcover that can hide other unsightly landscape and structural elements. But the ugly truth about this beautiful but non-native plant is that it aggressively invades new territory, often choking out native plants in the process.

Now that the cherry blossoms are in bloom and the daffodils are beginning to flower, people from coast to coast are starting to think about getting outdoors again. Participating in the creation of a community garden is a great way to build a neighborhood resource while getting some fresh air and growing some tasty vegetables and beautiful flowers in the process.

Credit unions have existed in the United States now for more than a century. Unlike banks, they are non-profit institutions and were originally formed to serve groups that share a common bond—such as a place of employment, residence, or membership in a labor union

Household products trigger chemical sensitivities in hundreds of thousands of Americans every year, yet few people make the connection between their skin rash or sneezing and the bottles and cans stored under their kitchen sink or in the broom closet.

Perhaps since the diet crazes of the 1970s, Americans have been looking to cut back on their intake of sugar. And doctors couldn’t be happier, as they consider the prevalence of sugar in our society a root cause of numerous health problems, including the recent trends in obesity and adult onset diabetes.

Geothermal (sometimes called “geoexchange”) heating and cooling is a technology that relies primarily on the Earth’s natural thermal energy, a renewable resource, to heat or cool a house.

A movement is afoot among real estate lenders to offer special mortgages and other incentives designed to reward energy efficiency and green-friendly building and restoration. Borrowers planning to purchase new energy efficient homes, as well as those looking to do ecologically motivated

<B>Dear EarthTalk: What are "energy efficient mortgages" and how do I qualify for one?</B>

<U>Dear EarthTalk: </U>What are the environmental impacts of our voracious appetite for coffee?</B>