Environment and Health
A Field Day for Fracking
U.S. and EU negotiators recently began a new round of negotiations on the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement. Because the talks are happening behind closed doors, the public is left largely in the dark about the nature of the discussions over a deal also known as the...
Giving Our Kids a Fighting Chance
As dire warnings from climate scientists continue to escalate and extreme weather events become increasingly common, the Obama administration's new proposal to cut carbon pollution from existing power plants couldn't be more important or timely. The Environmental...
A Gust of Nuclear-Powered Hot Air
Have you heard how nuclear power is a low-carbon solution that could ratchet down climate change? Even former Environmental Protection Agency chief Carol Browner is touting the industry for its supposed reliability, low-cost, and diminutive carbon footprint. For...
Samsung’s Broken Apology App
Sometimes, corporate chieftains actually step forward to apologize for the abuse they inflict on workers, consumers, communities, and the environment. The word "sometimes" makes such apologies seem more common than they are. "Once in a blue moon" is more like it....
Koch Brothers Rev Up High-Octane Hypocrisy
Hypothetical conundrums can provide valuable learning experiences for students of corporate management and ethics. Consider this one: Suppose you're a corporate chieftain who's a free-enterprise fundamentalist, despising government regulation, taxation, and...
Rowing Hard against the Tide Can’t Get You There from Here
How did your state mark the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling that gave women the right to keep Big Government out of their uteruses? If you live in North Dakota, your lawmakers banned abortion at six weeks — earlier than many pregnancies are detected....
Take a Hike! No, Really
For the first decade that I suffered from severe and almost daily migraines, I didn't consider them a gift. Yet, in a way — a very painful one — they are. My headaches began setting me apart from the rest of society at the age of 15. Back in 1996, my brother got a...
Paying for the Climate Change Pivot
We only have a few decades to deal with climate change. If humanity fails to cut back dramatically on carbon emissions by 2050, according to an alarming new UN report, our planet may warm past the point of our ability to fix the problem. Given global dependence on...
Meanwhile, the War on Tobacco Limps Ahead
Smoking isn't in the news much these days, but maybe it should be. Nearly half a million Americans still die from it each year. As the leading preventable cause of death in our country, tobacco kills way more people than guns, car accidents, and drug overdoses...
A Taxing Solution to the Greatest Challenge of Our Time
Ben Franklin said it best — nothing is certain, "except death and taxes." Like most Americans, we submit our 1040s to maintain the health of our nation. However, we'd personally rather decrease our income tax and instead pay a fee that reduces carbon pollution and...
