EHN Originals

When Ronald Reagan swept into office in a 1980 landslide, he appointed two contentious figures to run his primary environment agencies. James Gaius Watt was a Wyoming attorney for the Western States Legal Foundation, a freemarket group known for hauling into court federal agencies like the Fish & Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land…

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A majority of countries are not on track to remove the toxic pollutants known as PCBs from the environment by the 2028 global Stockholm Convention goal, according to a new study. Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, were largely used to prevent explosions in capacitors and transformers, as well as in products like building materials, paints, flame…

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Brenda Trejo Rosas joins the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice podcast to discuss how public health can move beyond treating race as a mere data point. Trejo Rosas is a PhD Candidate in the Environmental and Occupational Health Department at The George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, and a senior Agents…

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Air pollution takes 2.2 years off global average life expectancy, according to a report published today. This impact on global life expectancy is comparable to the impact of smoking, six times higher than that of HIV/AIDS, more than three times that of alcohol use and unsafe water, and 89 times that of conflict and terrorism,…

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In 1972, world leaders had gathered in Stockholm in an unprecedented acknowledgement that we were running into trouble. The gathering hammered out a weighty Statement of Principles. It was the first draft of an owner’s manual for planet Earth, but it left much to do. Two decades later, the site was Rio de Janeiro. World…

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This month Colorado became the first state to ban the use of PFAS in the extraction of oil and gas. While there has been widespread outcry about PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) in consumer goods — such as stain- and water-resistant clothing, nonstick pots and pans, firefighting foam, carpets and furniture — the oil and…

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—In the basement workshop of Rockler Woodworking and Hardware, instructor Palo Coleman is wrapping up a class on epoxy resin art, a popular craft for creating sparkly jewelry or charcuterie boards and “river” tables, with vibrant glass-like features that seemingly flow through the wood surfaces. As Coleman’s students—a woodworking hobbyist, and a retired builder…

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We’re at the tail end of the traditionally self-imposed mourning period for the massacres in Buffalo and Uvalde. As I write this on Thursday, we’re waking to news of another slaughter in Tulsa, but this time, only four died. Only? Back in the 1990’s, we had a less jaded attitude to both the fearful predictions…

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In March, the United Nations’ Environment Assembly adopted a landmark resolution, supported by 175 countries, to end plastic pollution with a legally binding treaty. Negotiations, expected to take two years, began this week. As a group of nine international experts on plastic pollution from eight countries, we’ve recently argued in a letter to the journal…

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ALBANY, NY—We descended stairs into the basement and swung open metal doors. In some ways, the animal autopsy lab at the New York Department of Environmental Conservation looks exactly how you might expect, with stainless steel benches and fluorescent lights. Kevin Hynes, my guide for the day, explained that this was one of several rooms…

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