I recently logged 1,300 miles in a rented white PT Cruiser traveling on I-94 from Chicago to Milwaukee and Madison, WI, down I-65 and I-74 to Cincinnati and up I-75 to Detroit. Along the way I saw dozens of road construction projects to expand traffic lanes, repair overpasses, and repave the road surface. Workers were […]
The New York Times’ latest “Room for Debate” discussion is entitled “2025: A Lot of Old People on the Roads,” and it introduces the topic this way: …the number of drivers 70 and over is expected to triple in the next 20 years in the United States. Older drivers are more likely to be injured, […]
Earlier this month, I was able to attend the final day of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO) USA conference, and it reminded me how far behind we are in preparing for a future in which oil is less readily available than it is now. Sharon Astyk, who’s an ASPO […]
Today is Blog Action Day, when bloggers around the world write about an important global topic. This year, the focus is on water. According to the World Health Organization, each year 3.4 million people – most of them children – die from water-related diseases. That includes 1.4 million children dying from diarrhea annually, and 860,000 […]
Environmental Health
“Not Fully Competent” or “Not Fully Candid”: Administration Disappoints on Oil Spill Science
Several news outlets have reported that the commission appointed by President Obama to study the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill has issued preliminary reports that are sharply critical of the Obama administration’s handling of the disaster. I downloaded the commission’s draft working paper “The Amount and Fate of the Oil” to see how they described […]
Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House roof; Ronald Reagan took them down. Today, at the GreenGov Symposium (taking place here at George Washington University), Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced that the Obama administration will install solar panels and a solar hot water heater on the White House roof by the end […]
New Solutions: The Drawing Board is a monthly feature produced by the journal New Solutions. Read more about it here. By Madeline Kangsen Scammell The following poem was written by Genevieve K. Howe, MPH, a former student and colleague of Professor Richard W. Clapp, DSc, MPH, to honor him upon his retirement from the faculty […]
The latest issue of The Economist features a special report on forests, which perform valuable services like sequestering carbon and regulating runoff. Because people can easily get paid for timber (or crops grown on deforested land) but not so easily for preserving forests, deforestation is rampant. As countries become wealthier, they generally start taking more […]
September 22nd is World Car-Free Day, when people everywhere are encouraged to get out of their cars and try different modes of getting around. The Metro DC Car-Free Day is also encouraging people to try “Car-Lite” options like carpooling, or to eliminate the need for a trip to the office by working from home. They’re […]
Environmental Health
“From Ship to Shore” – Reforming the National Contingency Plan to protect oil spill response workers, Center for Progressive Reform weighs in
by Elizabeth Grossman In mid-June, while reporting from the Gulf Coast, I asked the Deepwater Horizon Incident’s Joint Information Center (JIC) who the federal on-scene coordinator had appointed to serve as site safety officer, and for a copy of the Regional Contingency Plan’s health and safety plan. Both are requirements under the National Contingency Plan […]