Environment and Health
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...
Behind the GOP’s Unhealthy Attack
To borrow a cute term William Safire penned for Spiro Agnew, the "nattering nabobs of negativism" carrying on about the evils of the Affordable Care Act aren't going to roll back the health insurance overhaul they like to deride as "Obamacare." Reality sure isn't on...
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...
