Read my latest story, "The All-Nighter", at 52|250.

In May, many turtles and tortoises awake from winter hibernation and begin their search for mates. That’s why today, May 23rd, has been designated World Turtle Day. Personally, I can’t help but identify with, even admire, creatures who search for companionship while still carrying around a hard shell in which to retreat should the situation warrant it: you don’t always have to be soft.

In honor of the day, the Humane Society of the US has a list of twelve things you can do to help turtles and tortoises.

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Even as CNN cuts every five minutes to show the latest maps of suspected and confirmed cases of swine flu in the US (with occasional mentions of the rest of the world) there’s a lot that that’s being left out of the story. Here are five things you probably haven’t heard much about in connection with the flu:

1. Industrial Agriculture: Animals living in cramped, unhygienic quarters provide a breeding ground for new viruses, allowing them to hop from host to host, swapping DNA as they go. The drugs that they animals are pumped full of to keep them “healthy” actually make this worse because it means that the viruses that survive and thrive are drug-resistant strains. This current virus does respond to Tamiflu and Relenza, older anti-virals have no effect.
2. Poverty: Many of the first people to come in contact with the zoonotic viruses bred on factory farms live in cramped quarters with little access to hygienic facilities. This means that the disease passes on to more people more quickly. Also, the less money you have, the less likely you are to be able to afford missing work when you’re ill. The disease spreads to co-workers (and customers).
3. Air Pollution: The swine flu can lead to pneumonia. People whose respiratory systems are already under stress—from living in a highly polluted area, for example—are more likely to develop this complication. Given how polluted Mexico City is, it seems odd that this hasn’t been considered as a possible explanation for why the strain is less deadly (so far) in the US.
4. Potential Food Supply Disruption: If the swine flu does reach pandemic status, it’s likely that the food supply would be disrupted (and that you won’t want to go to the grocery store even if it isn’t). I’m sure you’ve already been told not to panic, so I won’t tell you again. I will, however, advise you to stock up on canned goods. If, like me, you live in an earthquake zone, you know you should have done this already.
5. Zombies: OK, so zombies actually have nothing to do with swine flu, but every major story should be connected to zombies by people on the Internet. This law is even more universal than Godwin’s.

In theory, having a day set aside to focus on environmental issues isn’t a bad thing. I think I would have enjoyed its 1970 form. It often seems, however, that celebrating Earth Day is a bit like giving your assistant a bouquet on Secretary’s Day in lieu of a living wage and health insurance. Indeed, when you Google ”Earth Day sale” or “Earth day products”, it starts to look like deducting the cost of the flowers from your assistant’s paycheck. How much water did it take to make that T-shirt? Are you going to recycle that card when you’re finished displaying it on your refrigerator (which, incidentally, is set a bit colder than necessary and contains way too much meat)?

Where the analogy breaks down, however, is that as much as we talk about saving the Earth, environmentalism is really about saving ourselves. It’s about maintaining a habitable environment. Of course, as the work of the Goldman Environmental Prize winners highlights, it is the poor who suffer the worst consequences of environmental degradation first, which makes it even more difficult to convince the wealthy, who are responsible for most of the harmful consumption, to change their habits.

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Especially in light of how increasingly hostile the airport environment has become since 9/11, this is excellent news:

President Barack Obama outlined his plan for “long overdue” high-speed rail on Thursday that would rival air travel, create jobs and help curb the U.S. transportation system’s appetite for oil . . . Obama envisions a network of short and longer-haul corridors of up to 600 miles plied by trains traveling up to 150 miles per hour.

One of the reasons I loved living in Japan was the ease with which I could travel. All I had to do was wake up in the morning and buy a ticket at the station. I didn’t have to worry about arriving early or finding transportation out to the airport. The worst thing that happened was when I accidentally sat in a smoking car on the shinkansen on my way from Tokyo to Hiroshima.

Besides all that, train travel is simply more pleasant than air travel (unless you get stuck on an overnight hard seat during one of China‘s national holidays, but that’s another pint of beer entirely). Your body doesn’t have to contend with changing pressures, and you get a much closer view of the scenery. While I admit that there is something to be said for the bird’s eye perspective planes offer, one can get much the same effect from a mountain or skyscraper.