Health
Los Angeles Releases First-Ever Urban Sustainability “pLAn”
Envisioning greener energy, cleaner air, and reduced consumption in LA by 2035
Perhaps no metropolis is better positioned than Los Angeles to pioneer ground-breaking environmental initiatives. As the second-largest U.S. city, and with the country’s largest municipally owned utility, a world-class research university–UCLA, and the blessings of abundant sunshine and a temperate Mediterranean climate, Los Angeles could serve as a global model for urban sustainability. Today, the …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Unreasonable Risk of TSCA Reform
Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act is no doubt generating significant conflict, including claims of undue industry influence, competing bills from prominent members of the same party, consternation among states, and divisions among health and environmental groups. And it may also be the closest we have gotten to TSCA reform—ever. …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Climate-Nutrition Nexus
The advisory panel on nutrition ruffled some congressional feathers by taking environmental impacts into account. The panel’s report concludes that “a dietary pattern that is higher in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and lower in animal-based foods is more health promoting and is associated with lesser environmental impact than is …
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CONTINUE READINGA Link Between Climate Denial and Autism? Inquiring Minds Want to Know!
You too can be a denialism/autism truther.
Let’s start by being candid and admitting that the jury is still out on this one. Still, there are reasons for concern about the possibility that climate denial can be associated with autism.Anyone who says this is false is just being dogmatic. We should at least openly acknowledge the existence of scientific uncertainty. Just consider …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Dietary Supplement Scandal
There are 65,000 dietary supplements on the market, and almost half the population uses at least one of them. Americans spent $13 billion on dietary supplements last year, according to the Washington Post. There are disturbing indications that nearly all that money is wasted — or to put it more bluntly, that the industry is essentially …
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CONTINUE READINGFood Policy: A Reply to Dan Farber
Earlier this week on this blog, Dan Farber made the excellent point that although the average American is neither malnourished nor obese, both persist as significant problems revealing deep failures in our food system. But his juxtaposition of statistics regarding obesity with those regarding malnourishment reflects a common misunderstanding of malnourishment, which is often equated with …
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CONTINUE READINGFood: Too Much and Too Little
Actual malnutrition among American children (weight more than two standard deviations below normal) is rare in the U.S. Most of the estimates that I found range around 1%. Still, there are roughly 45 million children under 12 in the U.S., so 1% amounts to almost half a million children. Malnutrition seems considerably more common among …
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CONTINUE READINGReaching Across the Aisle?
The safest prediction is that our Democratic President and Republican Congress will not in fact be able to work together. Their present gestures toward cooperation may mean nothing more than a willingness to accept the other side’s surrender. But hope springs eternal. Are there areas where common ground exists? That seems nearly impossible on some …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Ebola Panic
Some politicians encourage panic about a small outbreak in Texas, while thousands in Africa are dying.
The National Lampoon once put out a mock edition of a newspaper from the fictional city of Dacron, Ohio. There was a screaming headline reading: TWO DACRON WOMEN MISSING. A much smaller subheading read: Japan destroyed by tidal wave. We are now seeing something similar in the U.S. reaction to Ebola. So far, only three cases …
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CONTINUE READINGThe State(s) of Obesity
There are big differences between states, but this really is a national epidemic.
State of Obesity, a joint project of the Trust for America’s Future and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has released a fascinating report about adult obesity. There are large national disparities. The obesity rate is over 35% in West Virginia and Mississippi, but only 21% in Colorado. Despite these disparities, obesity rates have grown everywhere since 1990, …
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