Categories
Homepage News Archive

Climate change threatens more than the environment; it’s a public health crisis | COMMENTARY

After a four-year pause related to executive branch inaction, and with the transition to the Biden-Harris administration, we finally have new data from the federal government on the severity of the climate crisis. And it offers a grim diagnosis.

Drawing from more than 50 contributors from various government agencies and academic institutions, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Climate Indicators report confirms that climate change is making life harder for Americans in new and challenging ways.

Heat waves are occurring more often in the United States. Their frequency has increased from an average of two heat waves per year in the 1960s to six per year during the 2010s. Global temperatures are rising: 2016 was the hottest year on record, and the 2010-2020 was the hottest decade ever recorded. And sea levels are rising along most of the U.S. coastline, by as much as 8 inches in some locations.
Read More…
Photo Credit: Aude Guerrucci/Reuters

Categories
Homepage News Archive

Toxic beauty products contribute to health inequity

Toxic chemicals in beauty products commonly used by and marketed to Black people and other people of color could be contributing to racial health inequities.
So say researchers and community groups studying chemicals in consumer goods, arguing that the term “environmental justice,” which has gained prominence in recent years to describe how communities of color bear larger pollution burdens, should be expanded to include exposure from toxic beauty products.
Just as communities of color often are located in more polluted areas due to discriminatory zoning and housing policies, centuries of racist and sexist beauty standards favoring straight hair, for example, have pushed Black women and feminine people, in particular, to use products containing harsh chemicals that could harm their health.
Read More…
Photo Credit: Claudine Hellmuth/E&E News (illustration); Freepik (phtotos); American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology (text)