I see a future where states compete with one another to see which can be the most efficient, and where businesses seek out efficient states in which to locate so they can reap the economic and environmental benefits for their businesses and employees.
The position of Autism Speaks has been for quite awhile that we need to find out what’s happening. We know there’s a genetic component, and there’s an environmental trigger, and until we get to the bottom of what’s happening, no one knows what causes autism.
Many times, I left the prison thinking, ‘I’m smart. I can make it. I won’t get caught up again.’ But you get off downtown Skid Row, and you’re a target for all of the environmental harms in that area. The pain and trauma in that area is so thick, you can almost reach your hand out and touch it.
While trade agreements are negotiated in secrecy, behind-closed doors, we have learned enough from leaks to know that the result of passing TPA to ‘fast track’ these trade agreements would affect everything from food safety to environmental protection to consumer financial protections.
Ultimately, auto designers need to overcome market challenges with innovative design solutions. The automotive industry is at a turning point with environmental and economic conditions on one side and breakthrough technology on the other, so it will be fascinating to see how these design leaders envision the future.
There’s so many issues tied to the meat industry. I mean, social, environmental, humanitarian – all of them. I know that when I’m eating that I’m not hurting the planet, I’m not hurting other people on this planet, I’m not hurting animals… and I’m not hurting nature.
As we do our work in D.C., we should do our work in collaboration and in partnership, in cohesion with states so that we can work on environmental issues from Superfund to air quality to water quality across the full spectrum in things that we do in partnership with those folks.
We’ve sued out-of-state power plants that are polluting our air and led a coalition of attorneys general from Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and Massachusetts against efforts in the U.S. House of Representatives to remove critical environmental regulations that protect New York communities from toxic pollution.
Without question, I’m not a fan of the EPA. The EPA has overstepped their boundaries each and every day. They get into areas they shouldn’t be involved in… the states have the right to regulate themselves if they have the ability to do so – and we do because we have the Department of Environmental Quality.
What’s it like to envision the ten-thousand-year environmental impact of tossing a plastic bottle into the trash bin, all in the single second it takes to actually toss it? Or the ten-thousand-year history of the fossil fuel being burned to drive to work or iron a shirt? It may be environmentally progressive, but it’s not altogether pleasant.
Five years after the Chernobyl disaster, in the summer of 1991, the last summer the Soviet Union was still in existence, I visited Ukraine. I trekked out to the 20-mile exclusion zone – it had been cleared of all people after the accident – together with some local environmental activists.
I think an old style of addressing environmental problems is ebbing, but the rise of the so-called conservative, political movement in this country is not a trend towards the future but a reaction to this very broad shift that we are undergoing.
There is a new wave of environmental consumers I like to call Pocketbook Environmentalists. They’re going green primarily because it makes good financial sense, but the fact that it benefits their families’ health and the environment also makes them feel good.
I do comparative studies of climate evolution, and the interactions between planetary atmosphere and surfaces and their radiation environment, and try to understand the environmental factors that can affect a planet’s habitability and how they change over time.
I do think we need to hold countries accountable who violate trade agreements that are already in place. We need to get stronger about enforcement, that in the future if we strike a trade agreement, toughening up labor standards and environmental standards and enforcement standards is something we absolutely need to do.
Over the past several decades, a growing number of investors have been choosing to put their money in funds that screen companies for their environmental and labor records. Some socially responsible investors are starting to add free expression and privacy to their list of criteria.
Viewed from a holistic ecological perspective, some meat – such as conscientiously hunted animals – involves less suffering and environmental damage than arable agriculture, while both of these are significantly less harmful than indiscriminately purchasing meat on the market.
As President Trump quickly moved to limit immigration, civil rights, and environmental protections, I felt fear for my young children, and guilt, too – as if I’d somehow betrayed the unspoken contract all parents make to give our children a better life than ourselves.
There’s a rising tide of environmental awareness and activism among consumers that’s going to continue to swell in the 21st century. Smart companies will get ahead of that wave and ride it to success and prosperity. Those that don’t are headed for a wipeout.
When the government undertakes or approves a major project such as a dam or highway project, it must make sure the project’s impacts, environmental and otherwise, are considered. In many cases, NEPA gives the public its only opportunity to be heard about the project’s impact on their community.
I started traveling out of curiosity, but I have come to believe in travel’s political importance, that encouraging a nation’s citizenry to travel may be as important as encouraging school attendance, environmental conservation, or national thrift. You cannot understand the otherness of places you have not encountered.
Environmental pollution, terrorism, and many other global threats do not stop at borders. We all bear global responsibility and thus need a global identity to enable us to cope with them. We must learn to integrate different levels of identity in ourselves. What matters is not either/or, but both/and.
But, as environment minister, I am very interested in a thriving German automobile industry, because I can only pay for the rising costs of environmental protection at home and abroad if there are people in Germany with jobs and who pay taxes.
A person whose skin is metallic can no more have its reproduction restricted than a black-skinned person. Regarding life as a form of machinery and intelligent machines as people without our environmental limitations is essential in understanding FAP, the Final Anthropic Principle, which deals with evolution in the far future.
Helping people understand the impact of key environmental and human issues worldwide is something that I’m passionate about. CNN’s ‘Going Green’ series of specials are engaging viewers around the world through important messages of conservation and hope.
