Environmental Health

"Nations, companies and foundations pledged billions of dollars to feed the world in connection with an ambitious United Nations food summit Thursday, while some grassroots anti-hunger groups and food experts blasted the event as too corporate, tech-focused and top-down."

"The day after Wilma Banks lost power, the stale summer air inside her New Orleans apartment became suffocating."

"The World Health Organization has cut its recommended limits for air pollution and urged nations to tackle dirty air and save millions of lives. In the first update for 16 years, the guideline limit for the most damaging pollution – tiny particles from burning fossil fuels – has been halved."

"As climate change amplifies the health risks of extreme heat and pollution from wildfires, researchers scramble to protect farmworkers."

"A study at the University of Zurich in Switzerland shows that a large proportion of existing medicinal plant knowledge is linked to threatened Indigenous languages. In a regional study on the Amazon, New Guinea and North America, researchers concluded that 75% of medicinal plant uses are known in only one language."

"Scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency have provided The Intercept with new information showing that senior staff have made chemicals appear safer — sometimes dodging restrictions on their use — by minimizing the estimates of how much is released into the environment."

"COVID-19 has now killed about as many Americans as the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic did — approximately 675,000."

"President Biden launched a government-wide strategy Monday to combat extreme heat, including the development of new federal labor standards aimed at protecting workers from the impact of rising temperatures linked to climate change."

"The lions and tigers at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo have tested positive for coronavirus, according to a Friday announcement from the zoo. Initial results from fecal samples have come back positive, but the zoo is waiting on final results to be confirmed with a national lab."

"Young people coming of age in an era of climate disasters are trying to channel anxiety about the planet flooding and burning".