EcoHearth - Eco Op-Ed

What Is Sustainability?

EcoContact@EcoHearth.com (Fiona Sinclair, Ph.D. | Commentary) — Mon, 13 May 2013 05:00:00 +0000

Let me start by saying what sustainability is not. It is not endless consumerism based on the pharmaceutical industry, plastic bags, traffic jams, war, clear cuts, chemicals, genetically modified food, rising sea levels, sweatshops, shopping malls, the homeless, power, oppression and the decimation...

The 5% Solution to Our Shopping Addiction

EcoContact@EcoHearth.com (John Phillips | Commentary) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 05:00:00 +0000

It is not enough for us to blame big government and big business for what is in reality our responsibility. It is our pursuit of goods and services that creates the demand for raw materials: coal, oil, timber, iron, etc. It is our consumption that causes forests to be harvested, mines to be dug and...

If Plants Can Think, Is Global Deforestation a Form of Genocide?

EcoContact@EcoHearth.com (Steven Kotler | Commentary) — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Back in 1966, a CIA interrogation specialist named Cleve Backster performed an interesting experiment. Because lie detectors measure skin moisture (sweat) through galvanic response, Backster had hooked up a cane plant to a lie detector to measure rates of water consumption. But when he examined...

The Greening of the Military

EcoContact@EcoHearth.com (Steven Kotler | Commentary) — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Here's the problem with wildlife—they prefer things wild. Turns out, undomesticated animals don't like roads or condos or, well, visitors. They thrive in what ecologists call "contiguous wilderness," meaning nature unbroken, uninhabited and, these days, highly unlikely. Take the Florida black bear;...

You Are ‘Where’ You Eat: Navigating the Ecological Landscape of Food Choice

EcoContact@EcoHearth.com (Guest Contributor | Commentary) — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Most of us have got the message that “we are what we eat.” Francis Moore Lappe’s Diet for a Small Planet and Marion Nestle’s Safe Food: Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism go further. They have successfully made the parallel between healthful eating and good environmental stewardship. In this...

Revolution Made Easy: How the Occupy Movement Can [Still] Change the World

EcoContact@EcoHearth.com (Rick Theis | Commentary) — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 05:00:00 +0000

[Written in October 2011, less than a month after the occupation began, this commentary presents a strategy that still seems the best way forward for the Occupy movement and the country. - Ed.] One Occupy Wall Street (OWS) stalwart has stated, "This is the most important thing in our lifetimes—and...

‘The Sky Is Falling’: A Losing Argument for Environmentalists

EcoContact@EcoHearth.com (Steven Kotler | Commentary) — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 05:00:00 +0000

A while back, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote a column about our nation’s passivity. His argument was essentially that since the end of the Civil Rights era, Americans have stopped giving a damn. “Being American has become a spectator sport,” he wrote. So why is this happening?...

The Anti-Environmentalism of Tesla Motors’ Elon Musk

EcoContact@EcoHearth.com (Steven Kotler | Commentary) — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 15:00:00 +0000

In August of 2009, The New Yorker published an article about Elon Musk that immediately began bothering me. Musk, the one-time PayPal owner (his shares sold for $160 million) turned rocket scientist (his privately built spaceship/space company called Space X won the contract for ferrying supplies...

One Nation Under Drugs: How Big Pharma Is Sabotaging Your Health and the Environment

EcoContact@EcoHearth.com (Shane Ellison, M.S. | Commentary) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 05:00:00 +0000

As a medicinal chemist, I tried to ignore my suspicion that an insidious and deliberate conspiracy to get each and every American hooked on drugs, while at the same time bankrupting them, existed between Big Pharma and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). I enjoyed my work. Drug design paid...

The Malaria Paradox: Should We Sacrifice People to Save the Planet?

EcoContact@EcoHearth.com (Steven Kotler | Commentary) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0000

In a book written in 2009, The Life You Can Save, Princeton philosopher Peter Singer created the ethical quandary now known as the pond example. This week, in his column for the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof introduced the pond example and applied it to the participants in the G-8 summit. In...