The California-based Community Water Center has spent years trying to shine a spotlight on agriculture runoff and groundwater contamination that has made water undrinkable in the state’s most productive agricultural regions. Yet in a nation where most people believe agriculture is good for the environment, raising awareness of the nuances…
Guest Blog by Kate Davies When I do talks on environmental health, I often start by asking the audience if I can do a quick survey with them. They always agree. I begin by saying, “How many of you know someone living with cancer?” Usually, about half the people in…
Guest blog by Kathleen Mogelgaard Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about resilience. And I know I’m not the only one. In some ways, resilience is the new “it” concept, resonating throughout the climate change community, the disaster risk reduction community, and the mental health field. The US Agency for…
Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day, a day to celebrate the achievements of women around the globe. It’s also a moment to think about the issues that concern women the most: equal access to education and jobs, health and safety, reproductive rights. Oh, and the environment. Wait, what? As…
Family planning and conservation – mutually exclusive topics, or entirely inseparable? Resource Media has spent the last several years looking at the connections between environmental and public health, and, specifically, at the benefits of addressing unmet family planning needs to curb climate change. Climate, like population, is one of those…
It’s that time of year again: the holiday season. A time of giving and receiving gifts, many of which will be new electronics. Out with that “old” phone, game console, TV or laptop, and in with the new! Right? Of course there is an underbelly to our collective delight in…
That’s ABC News’ headline for its recent investigation into the economic and health costs of toxic blue-green algae that is spreading across the US. The TV segment, which aired first on World News Tonight, is hard-hitting, laying the blame for blooms in the Great Lakes squarely on agricultural runoff. Other…
Last week, I had a privilege of watching a powerful new climate change documentary, Chasing Ice, at a special screening on Capitol Hill. The film is full of staggeringly beautiful images of glaciers and sea ice, as one might expect given that its central character, National Geographic photographer James Balog,…
This summer, a retired couple played fetch at an Indiana lake with their four dogs. Twenty four hours later, two of the dogs were dead. The lake contained blue-green algae, which can release toxins that cause liver and respiratory problems in people and prove fatal to pets, but no warning…
Twenty years after climate change first hit the headlines at the Earth Summit of 1992, world leaders gathered again in Rio de Janeiro to talk sustainable development. The resulting “agreement” was a big fat letdown, but there were some bright spots. From the beginning, the Rio+20 agenda focused far too…
