health
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Hospitals and doctors’ offices look to cure their environmental ills
The irony is almost too obvious to state: tens of thousands of hospitals, doctors’ offices, medical laboratories, and assorted other health-care providers spew toxic substances into the environment, or dispose of trash containing a noxious mix of contaminated or infectious waste. Some of it will make its way into the air, water, and soil. All […]
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Tirso Moreno, farmworker organizer, answers questions
Tirso Moreno. What’s your job title? General coordinator for the Farmworker Association of Florida. What does your organization do? We work to empower communities of farmworkers and the rural poor, focusing on a wide range of issues, from workplace and community organizing to disaster preparedness and response, from vocational rehabilitation to immigrants’ rights advocacy for […]
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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 […]
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A little time in the lab could teach big business how to help the poor
Recent weeks have seen surprisingly effective demonstrations in support of animal testing in SustainAbility’s home city of London, under the catchy title of “Pro-Test.” Will support for the oft-reviled practice catch on? We aren’t sure, but it made us think. If we humans are animals, is there ever an argument for treating people as laboratory […]
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Meet Robert Bullard, the father of environmental justice
Robert Bullard says he was “drafted” into environmental justice while working as an environmental sociologist in Houston in the late 1970s. His work there on the siting of garbage dumps in black neighborhoods identified systematic patterns of injustice. The book that Bullard eventually wrote about that work, 1990’s Dumping in Dixie, is widely regarded as […]
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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, […]
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Tips on seafood consumption from a seafaring wench
Ahoy there, fellow poop-deckers! I hope the fair seas have treated ye well since me last arrrr-ticle. This one, dear mateys, will focus on grub -- that's food to you landlubbers -- specifically seafood. There's been much to-do lately on mercury advisories and the safety of sushi, so how's a seadog to know what's safe to eat, what's caught (or farmed) sustainably, and what's not?
But before I delve into the murky waters of seafood safety, I've a message for any bilge-suckers planning to comment on this post about how "un-environmental" I am for suggesting that seafood is an acceptable food source: I'll swab the deck with you, I will. Don't tempt me. That said, let's weigh anchor.
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What Mexican activists can teach the U.S. about poverty and the planet
As the border organizer for Sierra Club’s Environmental Justice program, I bounce back and forth across the U.S.-Mexico border supporting grassroots environmental activists. More than the food, language, or currency, the biggest difference from one side to the other is what issues are considered “environmental.” Perhaps nowhere else on earth is there such a long […]
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Stats on how much Americans pay for essentials
$1.99 — price of a gallon of 1% milk at Fred Meyer, a big-box chain store, in Seattle $5.69 — price of a gallon of organic 1% milk at Whole Foods in Seattle $4.29 — price of a Big Mac Extra Value Meal at a Seattle McDonald’s (Big Mac, medium fries, medium soft drink) $3.65 […]