health

The return of the uranium boom?

In a small community near a broad expanse of valley floor known as the West End, there’s a certain glow in the air. It’s the glow of progress, the glow of prosperity … and the glow of the uranium miners coming home from work? The Paradox Valley in southwestern Colorado.Courtesy U.S. Geological SurveyProbably not; we […]

Nick Leonard Politics

Will health care eclipse climate in Congress this year?

Halfway through the second debate of last fall’s presidential campaign, moderator Tom Brokaw asked the candidates what their top priority would be if elected. McCain hemmed and hawed, but Obama answered in plain language: energy is “priority No. 1” and health care “priority No. 2.” Fast forward. In an NYT Magazine piece this weekend on […]

David Roberts Politics

Food industry and longer commutes are making us fat

Recently I wrote about a study that looked across a few decades of data about housing and health. And we have written more than once about the relationship between the environment, location, health and price as it relates to food. Certainly there are systems issues that conspire against us when we try to make the […]

Roger Valdez Food and Agriculture

Anti-CAFO ads running in DC Metro

File this under intriguing. From Ag Professional (via a press release, I think) A new ad campaign is asking area commuters and people visiting Capitol Hill “Who’s hogging our antibiotics?” The series of ads, revealed in D.C. Metro stations and trains this week by the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming, is part […]

Tom Laskawy Politics

A sizzling test of seven eco-sunscreen brands

Ah, summer. It’s here at last! Before you rush out to revel in the rays, you’ll (of course) slather on some sun protection. Since you know the problems with conventional sunscreens — which range from coral bleaching to hormone disruption — you’ll choose a brand that’s better for your body and the planet. But which […]

Katharine Wroth Culture

Think of the children, or think of your ski trip: Two ways to tell the climate story

Forty-five million people go hungry or undernourished because of droughts and disasters wrought by climate change, according to a recent report by the Global Humanitarian Forum. Climate change leads to 300,000 deaths a year, the organization concludes, a toll that will reach 500,000 by 2030. Many of those who starve will be children. Of course, […]

Jonathan Hiskes Climate & Energy

Climate change is sexist

This is the second dispatch by Population Action International from global climate change talks in Bonn, Germany. Read the first. A Bangladeshi woman searches for drinking water after a cyclone.Photo: Abir Abdullah/OxfamOne of the under-reported issues about climate change is its dramatic affect on women. A side event I attended this afternoon, organized by the […]

Kathleen Mogelgaard Politics

First impressions from Bonn: climate change hurts the poor

At the opening of the international climate change talks in Bonn, Germany, today, representatives from governments around the world shared their opinions on a newly released draft of a global climate treaty that will be debated and (perhaps) finalized when they meet again in Copenhagen in December. Children herd goats in drought-ridden Ethiopia, on land […]