Shepherd Bliss | 3-year-olds and cell phones

Contributors

“The 3-year-old just walked right past me,” the Santa Rosa, Calif., pediatrician reported, “talking into a cell phone.” That stark image of toddler attached to machine has troubled me. “I was amused at first,” the physician continued. “Then I felt sad. She was learning how to relate to people through a machine. It was so…

Page Shields | Can coal be clean?

Contributors

With all of the controversy surrounding the construction of a coal plant in Wise County, VA it bears repeating that coal is not clean energy. The phrase “clean coal technology” fosters hope that scientists will find a way to take harmful elements, especially carbon, out of coal. Unfortunately this is a lost hope as the…

Thoraya Ahmed Obaid | Addressing crisis by investing in women

Contributors

None of the crises we face today – whether it is the food crisis, the water crisis, the financial crisis or the crisis of climate change – can be managed unless greater attention is paid to population issues. World Population Day is the right time to put the issue of population back on the radar…

Billy Parish | The first step is the hardest

Contributors

The House recently passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act , an important step toward protecting our environment and building a clean energy economy. ACES has generated a lot of strong opinions, for and against, especially in the environmental community. Now, I’m not a scientist or a policy wonk, but I did help start…

On the top-state-for-business bandwagon

Contributors

The big news in an otherwise slow news week – for those who don’t consider Michael Jackson to be anything other than an odd curiosity – had Virginia earning another ranking as the top state for business, this time from Pollina Corporate Real Estate Inc., a corporate site-relocation expert that has now tapped the Old…

Earth Talk | Sunspots, solar wind and oil shale

Roddy Scheer

Dear EarthTalk: Don’t some scientists point to sunspots and solar wind as having more impact on climate change than human industrial activity? – David Noss, California, Md. Sunspots are storms on the sun’s surface that are marked by intense magnetic activity and play host to solar flares and hot gassy ejections from the sun’s corona….