Daily Score Blog

This article made the rounds of the blogosphere yesterday, but it's still fresh news:  a new study shows that, even after controlling for factors such as income and race, residents of Great Britain are far, far healthier than their American counterparts. 

In both countries, rich people tend to be healthier than poor people.  But the health of Britain's poor was just about the same as America's rich. 

Of course, nobody can pinpoint a single cause for the better health on the other side of the Atlantic. Health care access -- universal in the UK, spotty here -- plays some role in overall trends.  But it can't explain the fact that wealthy Americans who enjoy good health care coverage are still sicker than wealthy Brits. In explaining the disparities, other factors, such lower physical activity and higher economic stress in the US, may loom larger than health care.

What surprises me, though, is that this is considered surprising news.  I mean, it's been exhaustively documented that, despite the nation's wealth, the US is the least heatlhy industrial democracy in the world (with the possible exception of Denmark).  US life expectancy ranks about 28th in the world, behind such economic powerhouses as Cyprus and Costa Rica, and neck-and-neck with Cuba.  Still, the news of the wide health disparity somehow seems to have caught people off-guard:

"I knew we were less healthy, but I didn't know the magnitude of the disparities," said Gerard Anderson, an expert in chronic disease and international health at Johns Hopkins University who had no role in the research.

Hm. Seems like American's dismal health record is a fact that's lying out there in plain sight -- but that even health experts aren't focused on yet.

Cool images from the Center for Neighborhood Technology show that people who live in dense urban areas -- downtown San Francisco, the denser parts of LA, or the Chicago city core -- emit less climate-warming emissions from cars and trucks.  See for yourself:

I'm showing San Francisco above because it's closest to the Northwest, but I think the Chicago map is coolest..

The simple explanation for the pattern is that people who live in denser neighborhoods -- places where stores, services, and jobs tend to be a short drive away, or even within walking distance -- simply drive less.  City dwellers also tend to drive smaller cars, which helps, too -- see, e.g., this pdf.

Teen pregnancy rates are falling; and adult couples are having fewer children and having them later in life. We mostly attribute these trends to lifestyle choices and public policies. But what if the real explanation--or part of it anyway--is actually chemical?

Are toxics, perhaps pesticides, actually impairing human fertility? An intriguing article in Slate takes up this question. It's a short, but fascinating review of a growing body of scientific evidence that chemical concentrations may be reducing male sperm counts, by as much as 3 percent a year in some instances. More in rural areas than urban ones. More in Europe than in the United States. What's going on?

I'm not nearly knowledgeable enough on this issue to know how seriously to take the research. But I'd be curious to know what others think of this stuff...

A typical American family like mine—with three kids, three drivers, and a middle-class income—drives their three vehicles a total of about 100 miles a day. That’s 36,000 miles a year. (This is a higher number than I would have believed but it’s from a giant dataset maintained by the US Department of Transportation, so I'll trust it for now.)

Before my family started its experiment in car-less living in February, we were averaging about 22 miles a day in our aged station wagon. (That’s 8,000 miles a year.) In other words, we were already driving about 22 percent of the norm.

What’s happened since?

Tomorrow, the U.S. Senate will begin confirmation hearings for Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, President Bush's nominee to replace Gale Norton as Interior Secretary. In anticipation of this event, the Idaho Statesmen continues its series on Kempthorne's career, and what we might expect from him as chief steward of our public lands. Tidepool's top story today sniffs out the money trail behind the governor. As we all know, money talks, and it looks like logging, mining and agriculture will gain another voice in Washington.

On the coast, Monday was a bittersweet opening day for salmon fishermen. The Christian Science Monitor provides a good overview of this year's Klamath crisis and beyond.

And beyond the region: For a great read about an emerging trend--conservatives who conserve--check out Tidepool's front page. The Washington Post profiles Dallas Morning News editor Rod Dreher, author of the book Crunchy Cons: How Birkenstocked Burkeans, Gun-Loving Organic Gardeners, Evangelical Free-Range Farmers, Hip Homeschooling Mamas, Right-Wing Nature Lovers, and Their Diverse Tribe of Countercultural Conservatives Plan to Save America (or At Least the Republican Party). Dreher could be the anti-Tom Frank.

Locally (actually about three blocks away), I'm looking forward to another opening day: the Columbia City Farmer's Market. I'm going shopping this afternoon!

Here's a related green business trend that predates
agricultural society: professional foraging. Tonight, I suggest some sauteed stinging nettles to accompany a wild salmon supper.

This post at The Oil Drum blog goes a long way towards explaining why oil prices have risen so sharply over the last couple of years.  According to international oil agencies, global oil production has been pretty flat since the middle of 2004, even as economic growth around the globe has boosted demand.  The chart below, derived from US Energy Information Administration figures, shows OPEC production only; but world figures are much the same.

Of course, the global petroleum system is so huge, and some production poorly enough tracked, that there's a lot of uncertainty in the graph above.  But it's hard to escape the notion that high prices are being caused by actual global supply limitations, not by oil company malfeasance or somesuch.