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On the road to humanism

We, Westerners, have been robbed of our access to and ability to get in touch with the Sacred. In all forms, not only in the religious or mystical sense but also in art, in communication with our fellow human beings,…

We Are Living Through a Paradigm Shift in Our Understanding of Human Evolution

An interview with Professor Chris Stringer, one of the leading experts on human evolution. By Jan Ritch-Frel There’s a paradigm shift underway in our understanding of the past 4 million years of human evolution: ours is a story that includes…

The Fear of AI Is Overblown—and Here’s Why

The unprecedented popularity of ChatGPT has turbocharged the AI hype machine. We are being bombarded daily by news articles announcing humankind’s greatest invention—Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI is “qualitatively different,” “transformational,” “revolutionary,” “will change everything,”—they say. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT,…

From the Manhattan Project to the Bronx Project: The toxic legacy of the nuclear age

Recent alarming reports state that the UK is prepared to supply Ukraine with depleted uranium ammunition in the ongoing slaughter in Ukraine. These lethally toxic carcinogens are known to cause illness and death, not only for the victims of war…

BAN Toxics Calls for No More Mercury Dental Fillings in Children

Amalgam is a dental filling material that is 50% mercury, a neurotoxin and pollutant. This week, BAN Toxics marks a historic milestone in the effort to protect children from amalgam’s mercury: the one-year anniversary of winning the Children’s Amendment to…

Creating Dignified Livelihoods

My basic idea is taken from the last speech of Martin Luther King Jr.  It was given in Memphis, Tennessee, less than 24 hours before his assassination.  He was in Memphis to support a strike of the sanitation workers of…

Global E-Waste Crisis, No Signs of Slowing Down

As the country celebrates Consumer Welfare Month and commemorates International Waste Pickers’ Day (held on March 1), BAN Toxics warns against the unsustainable production and consumption of disposable tech feeding the e-waste crisis, the fastest-growing waste stream. “Annually, the world…

A Donbas Diary: Looking Back at the Early Stages of the Conflict in Ukraine

It is evening in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, one of NATO’s easternmost members. I am waiting at the edge of Izvor Park in the city center to meet with a young friend who has fled Ukraine. In the backdrop…

VISION & GRIT: Exceptional Zero Waste Women in the Asia Pacific Region (thirteenth in the series)

Tiza Mafira: Fighting Abuses to the Environment One Logical Step at a Time by Marco Sumayao Tiza Mafira is used to adversity. For more than 10 years, she’s fought to create a more sustainable Indonesia and has seen many setbacks…

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin – 20th century feminist

March 8, International Working Women’s Day, is approaching and I remember a cartoon in a Latin American magazine. There was an elegant woman doing her nails and she shouts to her maid: “Maria, bring me my coat, I’m late for…