Stephan: Here is some excellent news about the bees. Although it didn't get much attention in the media, in my view this is a very big deal. Ninety percent of the plant and nut dishes you and I eat are only available because of the bees. Spring is only a few months away so let me tell you now. When it comes time to plant or add something in your garden or landscaping, take a few minutes to find out what the bees in your area thrive on and plant those plants. And never, ever, use common toxins like Roundup on your property. Each of us who wish to support wellbeing must become active in fostering wellbeing at every level.
Earthjustice attorney Greg Loarie said on December 21, 2022 that “scientists have long said systemic insecticides like sulfoxaflor are behind the unprecedented colony collapse of the last few years.” Credit: CrashSunRay2013 / cc / flickr
“It’s long past time for the EPA to take meaningful action to protect our most imperiled wildlife and put protections in place for endangered species before approving use of toxic pesticides on millions of acres of crops,” said one advocate.
In a major victory for pollinators and other wildlife, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Wednesday ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s registration of the bee-killing insecticide sulfoxaflor is unlawful.
In response to a legal challenge brought by the Center for Food Safety and the Center for Biological Diversity, the court argued that the EPA’s 2019 decision authorizing the expanded use of sulfoxaflor across more than 200 million acres of pollinator-attractive crops violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The court gave the agency 180 days to collect public comment and issue a new decision on the insecticide, which is […]
Stephan: I am really becoming concerned about America's obesity crisis. It is lowering life expectancy in this country, and increasing the rate of a whole range of diseases, starting with diabetes. The last time I went to Costco, a couple of weeks ago, I was struck by the fact that 65% of the people I saw, particularly women -- I counted on my phone -- were obese, some to a point where they were not comfortably able to walk around the warehouse, and were riding the little electric carts Costco provides for shoppers. Long-term obesity is going to have a whole range of negative social consequences and each person has to handle it for themselves.
Trust for America’s Health’s (TFAH) 19th annual report on the nation’s obesity crisis found that 19 states have obesity rates over 35 percent, up from 16 states in 2021, and that social and economic factors are key drivers of increasing obesity rates. The report includes data by race, age, and state of residence and recommendations for policy action.
(Washington, DC – September 27, 2022) – State of Obesity 2022: Better Policies for a Healthier America found that four in ten American adults have obesity, and obesity rates continue to climb nationwide and within population groups. These persistent increases in obesity rates underscore that obesity is caused by a combination of factors including societal, biological, genetic, and environmental, which are often beyond personal choice. The report’s authors conclude that addressing the obesity crisis will require attending to the economic and structural factors of where and how people live.
The report, based in part on 2021 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System, and analysis by TFAH, tracks rates of overweight and obesity […]
John Waldman, Professor of Biology at Queens College - The New York Times
Stephan: Here is good news showing us what can be done. Notice that Republican Richard Nixon, attempted to block the Clean Water act in service to the corporate masters the Republican Party serves. But the Democrats prevailed, and the Act passed, and this is what it has done. It tells us we can create conditions that allow the matrix of life to restore its balance. We just have to elect politicians that foster wellbeing instead of men and women who kneel down and kiss the corporate foot.
Credit: Ana Miminoshvili
Fifty years ago, Congress voted to override President Richard Nixon’s veto of the Clean Water Act. It has proved to be one of the most transformative environmental laws ever enacted.
At the time of the law’s passage, hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage was dumped by New York City into the Hudson River every day. This filth was compounded by industrial contaminants emptied into the river along much of its length. The catch basin for all of this was New York Harbor, which resembled an open sewer. At its worst, 10 feet of raw human waste blanketed portions of the harbor bottom, and certain reaches held little or no oxygen to sustain the life of its fishery. Trash floated among oil slicks.
Health advisories against eating fish from the Hudson remain, but its ecology has largely recovered, thanks to the law, which imposed strict regulations on what could be discharged into the water by sewage treatment plants, factories and other sources of pollution. Today people swim in organized events in New York Harbor, […]
Stephan: In contrast to what is being done in New York, I present you with this study of stupidity, greed, and short-sightedness. This is what we must stop doing.
Credit: Unsplash / CC0 Public Domain
Kathleen Ferris stared across a desert valley dotted with creosote bushes, wondering where the water will come from to supply tens of thousands of new homes. In the distance, a construction truck rumbled along a dirt road, spewing dust.
This tract of open desert west of Phoenix is slated to be transformed into a sprawling development with up to 100,000 homes—a 37,000-acre property that the developers say will become Arizona’s largest master-planned community.
“It’s mind-boggling,” Ferris said. “I don’t think there is enough water here for all the growth that is planned.”
Water supplies are shrinking throughout the Southwest, from the Rocky Mountains to California, with the flow of the Colorado River declining and groundwater levels dropping in many areas. The mounting strains on the region’s water supplies are bringing new questions about the unrestrained growth of sprawling suburbs.
Ferris, a researcher at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy, is convinced that growth is surpassing the water limits in parts of Arizona, and she worries that the development boom is on a […]
Stephan: This is why I am so strongly opposed to any expansion of nuclear power plants. We are going to be cursed with the waste of this technology for untold time, the half-life is thousands of years. And it is lethally dangerous.
A container of waste is excavated from an underground storage trench at the Hanford Site. Credit: Department of Energy / Public Domain
The most polluted place in the United States — perhaps the world — is one most people don’t even know. Hanford Nuclear Site sits in the flat lands of eastern Washington. The facility — one of three sites that made up the government’s covert Manhattan Project — produced plutonium for Fat Man, the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki during World War II. And it continued producing plutonium for weapons for decades after the war, helping to fuel the Cold War nuclear arms race.
Today Hanford — home to 56 million gallons of nuclear waste, leaking storage tanks, and contaminated soil — is an environmental disaster and a catastrophe-in-waiting.
It’s “the costliest environmental remediation project the world has ever seen and, arguably, the most contaminated place on the entire planet,” writes journalist Joshua Frank in the new book, Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America.
