air pollution

A virtual walking tour through an L.A. neighborhood with activists from Pacoima Beautiful

The tiny community of Pacoima, at the north end of Los Angeles, suffers from nearly every imaginable obstacle to a healthy urban environment. That means, for starters, lead paint, freeway traffic, airports, landfills, diesel trucks, chemical manufacturing, power plants, heavy industry, and overcrowding. It also means the linguistic and cultural differences that have historically defined […]

Multiple Chemical Sensitivities can drive sufferers into poverty as well as ill health

Consider the trappings of modern life: Calvin Klein Eternity, gasoline, Gore-Tex, Aveda hairspray, paint, particle board, polyurethane iPod cases. Is this the face of the future? Photo: iStockphoto. Now imagine that you’re allergic to virtually all of them. Environmentalists usually think about chemical toxicity as either a dramatic local crisis (Bhopal, Love Canal) or the […]

Francisca Porchas, clean-bus campaigner, answers questions

Francisca Porchas. What work do you do? I am a lead organizer with the Labor/Community Strategy Center and the Bus Riders Union‘s Clean Air, Clean Lungs, Clean Buses Campaign, based in Los Angeles. How does it relate to the environment? The Strategy Center has engaged in environmental-justice and civil-rights campaigns for the last 17 years, […]

How poultry producers are ravaging the rural South

A person driving through the South might notice the chicken houses dotting the hills and flatlands. He might marvel at the larger ones, as long as a football field. He might react to their gagging stench for a moment, and then forget as he travels on. But those who live near the structures — stuffed […]

Umbra on fireplaces

Dear Umbra, We pile on socks and sweaters, but there are just times you need more warmth. Should we use the fireplace or our central (gas-powered) heater? Also, can you let us know which is better, natural firewood or those chemically infused logs that claim lower particulate matter is released? Kas SutDavis, Calif. Dearest Kas, […]

Umbra on bicycle commuting, again

Dear Umbra, So what about bike commuting? Is it safe? Is it good? Is it encouraged? P.K. BorzoSt. Paul, Minn. Dearest P.K., Yes, yes, yes. Lungwise, biking is at least as safe as driving, if not more so. It’s true, as many readers pointed out after my previous column, that we breathe more heavily when […]

Umbra on bicycle commuting

Dear Umbra, My question regards my daily half-hour (each way) bicycle commute through fairly heavy city traffic. I’ve been wondering if the benefits (exercise, sunshine, free and fast transport) are outweighed by the negatives (primarily breathing in diesel and other exhaust, but I’d also throw in the risk of almost getting run over, despite the […]

Are smoking bans fair?

Well, I'd subject you to more TV updates, but I actually went out last night and had a life. Which involved being in a smoke-filled bar for several hours. Which got me to thinking ... yuck.

Seattle's one of the country's healthiest cities, yet it's only just now getting around to considering a smoking-ban referendum. If the effort passes, Seattle will join the growing list of cities (Boston, Minneapolis), states (California, Delaware), and even countries (Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden) that have put butts under wraps.

This public-health progress has come despite agitated protests on business, political, and personal grounds. I have to admit, I didn't have strong feelings about such bans until I lived (pre-Seattle) in a city that instituted one. And then I realized: breathing? It's a good thing.

Umbra on offsetting emissions from flatulence

Dear Umbra, I was wondering if there is any information about the average CO2 emissions from human flatulence. My friend (and I really do mean my friend, I’m not just trying to hide that it’s for me) has a birthday coming up, and I think it would be a fun and meaningful gift to get […]