news-opinion

Pesticides disproportionately affect low-income communities and communities of color. Over 700,000 farmworkers in California, mainly people of color, live and work in areas barraged by toxic chemicals. They experience more acute pesticide poisoning cases than any other part of California’s population. Take glyphosate as an example. Commonly called Roundup, glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the U.S. The World Health Organization classifies …

Water is necessary for life. Up to 60 percent of the adult human body is water. Water regulates our body temperature and metabolizes and transports carbohydrates and protein in the bloodstream. Water is also necessary to wash our hands, particularly during a pandemic. Some people in the U.S. lack either access to water or access to clean water. More than two million Americans lack running water …

Do you know that you likely consume plastics every day? Researchers found that Americans eat from 39,000 to 52,000 particles of plastic a year. Those who drink bottled water may ingest an additional 90,000 microplastics. Recent studies found microplastics, tiny pieces of plastic smaller than five millimeters in size, in food. One study published in the August issue of Environmental Research looked at vegetable …

Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C. What he did once in office is to create a foul swamp of ethical violations. President Trump’s Interior Department is plagued by ethical violations. Trump’s first Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke resigned in 2018 amid investigations into his conduct while in office. Current Interior Secretary David Bernhardt has faced investigations into his …