Environment and Health
The Media’s New Climate Denial
What planet does Big Media think it's living on? Over 300,000 people filled the streets of New York City in September as part of the worldwide People's Climate March, a stirring call for action on global warming. But if you watched TV news that day, you may not have...
Banning Medical Pot Makes No Sense
A few months back, a friend of mine died of cancer. I'll call her "Karen," for her privacy. By the time we met, she was already terminally ill and had been for months. Over the next year and a half, I watched my friend lose her hair and waste away until I could hardly...
Some Serious Potty Talk
There's a photo-word montage on the Internet in which a little boy, presumably from Africa, looks skeptically at a woman who is apparently from somewhere else. The boy asks, "You mean to tell me you have so much clean water, that you (poop) in it?" Umm…yeah. Yeah, we...
Worried About Climate Change? Ban Fracking on Federal Lands
As world leaders get ready to gather in New York City for the United Nations Climate Summit, it's time to take stock of how the United States is meeting its own climate challenges. While the UN has the power to help forge a world with good jobs, clean air and water,...
A Simpler Solution to Climate Change
Even if climate science is complicated, author Naomi Klein wants you to know that finding a solution to global warming is easy. In her powerful new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, the Canadian globalization expert drills through the noisy...
Ted Cruz Dreams Up Assorted Fossil Fuel Favors
Let's take a cruise down the narrow byways and twisting turns that form Senator Ted Cruz's mind. The first right turn on our road trip brings us to a sweeping view of the Texas Republican's Energy Renaissance Act, a proposal so studded with fossil fuel favors that it...
California Adds Steam to the Bag-Banning Movement
California is on the verge of becoming the first state to ban plastic grocery bags. Governor Jerry Brown says he intends to sign the bag-banning law California lawmakers approved in early September. The ban will go into effect at grocery stores and pharmacies next...
A Change in the Weather
Why I’m Marching for Climate Action
I've long known how wasteful, destructive, and dangerous the process of extracting oil from tar sands is. You have to dig up four tons of dirt and rock to get one barrel of oil. Beautiful old-growth boreal forest becomes a wasteland. And that single barrel of oil? It...
The Leaf Blower Divide
When new neighbors moved in next door, I didn't hold off long before broaching the Big Question. Even though we live in Washington, D.C., this had nothing to do with politics. For me, neighborly harmony hinges on where folks stand on this divide: leaf blower vs. rake....
