Frances Beinecke

When people who love the ocean come together, they can achieve extraordinary things.

Mercury is most commonly recognized as a developmental toxin, threatening to young children and fetuses as they develop their nervous system. Prenatal exposure to even low levels of mercury can cause life-long problems with language skills, fine motor function, and the ability to pay attention.

The oceans have been a part of my life for as long as I remember. As a child, I spent hours playing in the surf off Cape Cod. In college, I fished along the rocky coast of Nova Scotia with my school's fishing team.

Pollution from oil and gas development, toxic runoff, and miles and miles of plastic trash foul the waters and threaten marine life.

Declaring the San Gabriel Mountains a national monument will make this natural wonder more accessible. It will welcome people from all walks of life and maintain the mountains' wild character at the same time.

The people who harvest America's food must be treated with respect and earn a living wage.

In grownups, mercury can cause memory loss, tremors, vision loss and numbness of the fingers and toes. It can also adversely affect fertility and blood pressure regulation, and a growing body of evidence suggests that exposure to mercury may lead to heart disease.

Whether it is salt farmers in India embracing solar power or wind companies creating tens of thousands of jobs in America, people are providing a vision for the clean energy future.

Shell has poured billions of dollars into offshore Arctic drilling, but no matter how much it spends, it cannot make the effort anything but a terrifying gamble. And if Shell, the most profitable company on Earth, can't buy its way to safety in Alaska, nobody can.

VW has held a beloved place in American culture. When I graduated from college, many of my friends drove across the country, and most hit the road in a VW van or Bug. Through the years, these cars have represented youth, freedom and quirkiness.

California's drought affects everyone in the state, from farmers to fishermen, business owners to suburban residents, and everyone has a role to play in using precious water resources as wisely and efficiently as possible.

The phrase 'mad as a hatter' was coined because hat makers were poisoned by the high levels of mercury used in felt processing; these workers developed a strange, uneven gait as well as strange alterations in their personalities - traits that resembled mental instability.