Risk: Reason and Reality

       When I was a kid, my synagogue was right across the street from a Catholic church. Bellevue Avenue made such a clear dividing line between us – The Chosen People – and them…the enemy. No doubt the view from the other side of the street was the same. I had no idea at the time what a powerful ... Read More

       This is just stunning. In fact, it’s hard to believe it’s true. But the Heartland Institute, a fiercely conservative and libertarian think tank that champions denial of climate change, is running billboards in Chicago featuring pictures of notorious criminals, like Ted Kaczynski (aka the ... Read More

        They are looking for Etan Patz again. He was 6 years old when he went missing in New York City in 1979, a disappearance that, along with those of several other children in just a couple years, helped spark a nationwide paranoia about child abduction. That fear far exceeds the actual danger ... Read More

            My father, a journalist, died a few days ago. He taught me that journalism is not just a job but a calling, a high form of public service. I did my best, and still do, to live up to that commitment. This essay is for him, and all my friends and colleagues in journalism who serve the ... Read More

          California’s initiative process can be both a wonderfully democratic and perilously dumb way to make law. On no issue could that be more true than the proposed initiative to shut down nuclear power in the state. The question – which proposes shutting down the Diablo Canyon and San Onofre ... Read More

     As part of considering the costs and benefits of major regulations, the federal government assigns a dollar value to human life. This is not a real person, just an imaginary statistical average life, calculated using some semi-fancy math to establish what the wonks call the Value of a ... Read More

Item:  A study finds that between 1970 and 2009, melanoma skin cancer cases increased eight times in women aged 18-39, and four times in men, apparently from increasing use of tanning beds. Item:  Many of the evacuees around Fukushima are being allowed to move back into their homes because the ... Read More

      The battle over Bisphenol A (BPA) rages on, and continues to teach lessons far beyond the particulars of the issue itself. Environmentalists argue that BPA (the supposedly dangerous chemical component in some plastic bottles and the lining of food cans) is dangerous and should be banned. The ... Read More

            Majorities around the world believe that the climate of the earth is changing, that human activity is contributing to those changes, that the changes are happening so fast they could do really serious damage to environmental AND human health…and yet most people don’t really care. As a ... Read More

      Here’s some bad news for those of you who like to think you can think rationally about risk. You can’t. You know all those thoughtfully considered views you have about nuclear power or genetically modified food or climate change? They are really no more than a jumble of facts, and how you ... Read More

     Want something else to worry about? Worry about worrying too much. The evidence is building that chronically elevated stress shrinks your brain!      A study in press at the journal Biological Psychiatry asked 103 people about how often they had experienced stressful events, both recently ... Read More

            When you read a news story about a threat or danger or hazard, what do you want to know? Most likely, you want to know if it’s a risk to YOU, and how much of a risk it might be. Given that we rely on the news media for information about threats to our health and safety, it is absolutely ... Read More

       A year ago a terrible earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power disaster in Japan gripped the world’s attention for weeks. The news is already full of stories about the anniversary of those frightening events, and lessons learned. Here’s one. The word ‘Fukushima’ means something to many of ... Read More

             I had a conversation the other day with a friend, an elected official who represents my community’s interests in a legislative body. I called to offer some information that might help her consider proposed legislation to allow only hand-held cell phone use by drivers. Like most of you ... Read More

     As I have written here before, many of us are more worried about some environmental risks than the evidence suggests we need to be - mercury, bisphenol a, nuclear power - and less worried about some eco-threats than the evidence tells us we ought to be - climate change, particulate air ... Read More