Could My Chilean Childhood Combat Plastic Waste?

In the 1980s, We Recycled Our Bottles in Big Red Crates. Returning to Returnables Can Curb Pollution Today

When I was growing up in the ’80s in Santiago, Chile, during the Pinochet dictatorship, air quality was the environmental problem most present in our lives. It determined whether we could drive that day, how overwhelmed hospitals would be, and whether or not we would have physical education at school.

Global warming was unheard of. And plastic was our friend: a cheap, versatile, and durable material that let us play, move about, and simplify our lives. We never anticipated its long-lastingness would become a problem.

During those politically tumultuous years in the …

by Natalia Bogolasky | May 1, 2024

Why Can’t All Californians Breathe Clean Air?

How Communities and Coalitions Are Working Toward a Future Where Race and Income No Longer Determine Pollution Levels

by Jackie Mansky | January 28, 2022

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously this week to phase out fossil fuel sites and ban new oil and gas wells.

That kind of victory was once inconceivable for California’s …

To See the Fate of the Oceans, Look Back a Half-Billion Years

Too Much Carbon and Not Enough Oxygen Devastated Marine Life in Ancient Times

By Eelco Rohling | March 27, 2018

What can the deep geological history of the oceans tell us about the future?

This question is a difficult one. In fact, it is considerably easier to start with the opposite …

Sixteen Years After His Death, a Renowned Environmentalist Won His Longest Fight

David Brower, Founder of Friends of the Earth, Spent His Career Negotiating Between Nature and Power

By Tom Turner | August 31, 2016

Earlier this year, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, which built and operates the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors on the central California coast, announced that it will phase them out by …

Will Environmental Crises Segregate Sports?

Snowless Mountains and Poisoned Beaches Will Drive a Wedge Between Athletes of Different Classes

By Andrew Dana Hudson | August 10, 2016

In Brazil, Olympic rowers and sailors will chase gold through dying rivers and poisoned lagoons. Even amid all the crises piling up on this year’s games—unfinished infrastructure, political drama, financial …

What Does China’s Growing Middle Class Desire Most? Blue Skies.

Decades of Rapid Industrialization Created Massive Pollution, Now Wealthier Chinese Are Demanding a Cleaner Environment

By Matthew E. Kahn | August 9, 2016

Over the last 35 years, China’s economy has completely transformed itself, thanks to urbanization and industrialization.

As their country has become the “world’s factory,” hundreds of millions of Chinese people …

pollution