Environment and Health
Toxic Tech
Ming Kunpeng went to work for ASM Pacific Technology — a chip supplier for Apple — when he was 19 years old. Required to handle the known carcinogen benzene on a daily basis without adequate training or protective gear, the young worker fell ill at the age of 22....
Changing our Climate of Indifference
A new scientific report predicts more dire and irreversible consequences of the climate crisis than ever before. "No one on this planet will be untouched by climate change," declared Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which...
Boehner’s Joke’s on Us
Said Boehner, "What the Hell is this, a joke?" Said Obama, "Oh no, not again with this bloke." The ACA sign-up deadline's extended To benefit millions as it was intended. The website snafu caused such delays, "We need the extension," the President says. Boehner is...
A Fossil-Fueled Bombshell
Royal Dutch Shell buried a bombshell in its recently released 2013 annual report. Amid 200 pages of predictably and mind-numbingly dry text, the world's seventh-largest oil company foreshadowed something big. Here are the exact words, which Shell buried in the...
Republicans Can’t Win by Attacking Health Care in 2014
For me, the fact that Republicans keep using the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare – as a political football is a tragedy. Sure, the law has problems, but it is already saving lives and improving the health of millions of Americans. Thankfully, it seems that Republicans...
The Great American Experiment
There are more than 1,000 chemicals known to be toxic to the brains of animals in lab experiments. Yet we only know of 214 for humans, and just 12 for developing fetuses and infants, a recent study revealed. Why are these numbers so far apart? Is it because lab...
Poetic Justice Strikes the CEO of ExxonMobil
Rex Tillerson is mad. Fracking mad. The 61-year old farmer from Bartonville, Texas is another victim of the fracking boom that has invaded people's homes and lives nationwide, from upstate New York to Southern California. Millions of Americans have experienced...
A Recipe for Better Disaster Movies
It's hard not to love mediocre, bad, or even awful movies that portray a post-apocalyptic or utterly dysfunctional future. If you've watched Logan's Run, Water World, The Day After Tomorrow, AI, or Soylent Green more than once, you'll know what we mean. But there's...
The Secret Affair Your Lawmaker Wants to Hide from You
How bad will it get? The public approval rating for Congress has sunk to 9 percent, the lowest level since Gallup began to ask us about it. But your lawmakers are bound to get even more unpopular. Willing legislators have begun a scandalous relationship with corporate...
Rebuilding the American Dream, One Insurance Policy at a Time
The Republicans give lots of reasons for their opposition to the Affordable Care Act. Only two really matter. One is politics. The other is money. More precisely, big-business money. Like Social Security and Medicare, the expansion of health insurance coverage is...
