toxics

Quote of the day

On the heavily polluted town of Port Arthur, Tex.: "This city is not going to change. It is a refinery town — tomorrow, next year, 100 years from now. It will always be a petrochemical area," says Ortiz. And if its residents are getting sick from the pollution? Well, says Ortiz: "We’ve all got to […]

Umbra on household help and homemade cleansers

Dear Umbra, I recently moved in with my investment-banker boyfriend. So far, my efforts to teach him to have more fun with less stuff have been largely successful; however, I’ve hit a roadblock when it comes to his cleaning lady. My first question, Umbra, is this: what are the social and ecological implications of hiring […]

Thoughts on surviving life after Brood Awakenings

The perfect ending is a gorgeous thing, all the loose ends neatly knotted, all the confusion gone. It’s a motionless bird on a wire — calm, brightly plumed, contented, with no need to fly off or find a worm or do anything but sit in the sun and enjoy the day. Illustration: Keri Rosebraugh If […]

Ecologist Sandra Steingraber explores the eco-causes of early puberty

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from “The Falling Age of Puberty in U.S. Girls: What We Know, What We Need to Know,” written by Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D., and published by the Breast Cancer Fund. In the full report (downloadable here), Steingraber reviews several causes of and contributors to early puberty, including environmental factors. […]

I stole that headline from this NYT article

To turf, or not to turf? The controversy continues.

There’s no lead-free lunch

Have you heard the one about the “healthy lunch” campaign that used lunchboxes found to contain lead? No joke.

How four green parents deal with the plastics scare

Pop quiz time: plastic baby bottles are a) completely safe, or b) a risk to you, your baby, and every other living thing in the entire universe? The answer lies somewhere in between — but you wouldn’t know it from most media reports. Over the last year, countless stories have sprung up citing research about […]

A guide to buying non-plastic baby products

Worried sick about plastic — or even feeling a teeny bit queasy? Here are a few alternatives for common baby items, and resources for where to buy ’em. (And don’t forget, you could always make your own.) Squeaky clean and PVC-free. Photo: iStockphoto Bathtubs Non-plastic baby tubs seem to be hard to find; probably the […]

Mercury moves from coal plant to fish dinner as fast as its name implies

A Scientificblogging post explains that it only takes three years for mercury emitted by coal-fired plants to travel up the food chain into fish that we eat:

"Before this study, no one had directly linked atmospheric deposition (mercury emissions) and mercury in fish," says study co-author Vincent St. Louis of the University of Alberta.

The experiment filled a major gap in scientists' understanding of how mercury moves from the atmosphere through forests, soils, lakes and into the fish that people eat.

It's immediate value is that it provides undeniable proof of a direct link, said St. Louis, who specializes in what is called whole-ecosystem experimentation.

He said it should spur policy-makers to enact regulations for more rapid reductions in mercury emissions by industry.