Environment and Health
The Perils of Watered-Down Regulations
"There's a folksy saying my grandma taught me: 'If it smells like licorice and tastes like licorice, it must be licorice.' Now it has a corollary: 'Or it could also be a 4-methylcyclohexane methanol spill into your water supply, so grab the children and run for your...
Re-Defining the Environment
When American aid worker-turned essayist William Powers went to Bolivia, he found the Chiquitano indigenous people didn't share our concept of "the environment." How could a people living in one of the most pristine tropical forests in the world fail to grasp this? To...
Breeding Superbugs
Can antibiotic medicines, long hailed as miracle drugs, be too much of a good thing? Yes. Two factors are at work here. First, bacteria (one of the earliest forms of life on Earth) are miracles in their own right, with a stunning ability to outsmart the antibiotic...
Why I’m Breathing Easier in 2014
For the first time in years, I've got health insurance. Before now, my "insurance" was nothing more than exercise, a healthy diet, and medicinal herbs. I've gotten insured through the Affordable Care Act without dealing with a buggy website because I live in...
This California Scheme Is Bad for Your Health
In this wicked world of woe, there are hucksters, flimflammers, plain ol' crooks...and Republican members of the California Assembly. This last bunch of scoundrels went out of their way to monkeywrench the rollout of President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. This...
Finding the Real Mother of Obamacare
A Financial New Year’s Resolution
On Nov. 26, a group of witnesses, citizens, journalists, and elected officials filed into a public hearing in Washington, DC on how the government might divert taxpayer dollars from supporting the most polluting fossil fuel companies. Are you surprised? Do you think...
Chill the Drills in America’s Arctic
America’s Arctic is a place like no other. Its unique conditions — extreme weather, long periods of darkness, and its remoteness from infrastructure, make it both extremely harsh and fragile. Here, sea ice meets the northern edge of the continent, and animals...
Let the Sun Shine In
Now the Koch brothers are coming after my solar panels. I had solar panels installed on the roof of our Washington, D.C. home this year. My household took advantage of a generous tax incentive from the District government and a creative leasing deal offered by the...
Flashback: Drilling for Oil Wealth on Capitol Hill
I always thought the best job in the world was being Dick Cheney's mea culpa coach. The pay wouldn't be much but, in terms of not having much to do, it ranks up there with being a Christmas shopper for Osama bin Laden. Now I have discovered an even better job. It's...
