Environment and Health
Screwballism vs. Science
When asked what the world needs, people tend to go all gushy and offer up such fuzzy stuff as "world peace" and "more kindness." Yeah, yeah — but get real. Let's talk practicality here. What the world needs is something tangible, a new whiz-bang product that will...
Neglecting Mother Nature
Wealth and power Bring this curse, Air and water Ever worse. Whether a country's capitalist or communist, a dictatorship or a democracy, it makes no difference to Mother Nature. Regardless of the dominant economic philosophy or form of government, the environment is...
Oklahoma’s Silly Goose
License to Kill
Regulations stink, right? Lots of politicians run on promises that they'll get rid of them to make way for an economic boom. Well, have you ever considered what our world would look like without regulations? In the early 20th century, almost all paint contained lead....
Don’t Mourn the Planet’s Destruction, Organize!
Should we weep or cheer on Earth Day? Both. The first step toward any recovery is admitting that we have a problem. In fact, beaucoup problems. For example, despite the squawking of profiteering polluters and professional deniers, our very atmosphere — without which...
ExxonMobil’s Mayflower Mess
Several weeks after ExxonMobil's Pegasus pipeline gushed at least 500,000 gallons of tar sands crude and water into the Arkansas community of Mayflower, many of the evacuated families still can't return to their homes. Sierra Club organizer Glen Hooks, who grew up...
The Army Goes Off the Grid
Do you know about "net zero"? That's the wonky phrase attached to an elegant idea: converting communities to total renewable energy, complete recycling, and a culture of conservation to bring humankind's carbon footprint into a sustainable balance with a healthy...
Texan Turf War
Turf wars can be the silliest of all scuffles, and no place does silly with more zeal than Texas. For example, the fine people of Dallas recently fell into a doozy of a turf tussle between the natives and foreigners — and the foreigners are winning. The...
Fracking Free Speech
It's one thing for Big Oil to bust into our communities, groundwater, and economic well-being with the hydraulic fracturing natural gas boom. Now, in addition to poisoning the environment, this fracking fad is busting the free speech rights of locals who dare to speak...
Barnyard Sex Education
In 2009, an interim Texas school superintendent declared that sex-education classes were unnecessary in his rural district. Most of the area's school kids live on farms, he explained, therefore: "They get a pretty good sex education from their animals." It's this kind...
