DEAR READERS: Making America “green,” with clean air, clean water and safe, nutritious food for all, calls for government administrations that do not roll back protective rules and regulations, allowing industries to pollute our environment and harm our health. There is no lack of evidence of linkages between environmental pollutants and a host of diseases. All should determine if their worldview and actions cause more harm than good beyond the narrow circle of their vested interests and investors.

America can be great again, but not until individual liberties are coupled with individual and corporate responsibility for environmental protection, conservation, restoration, animal rights and related public health. We especially need to make international trade “green.” America should not, for instance, be importing beef from Brazil if that country is destroying the Amazon forest to raise cattle and livestock feed.

Here are some critical issues that call for international collaboration to arrest climate change and loss of biodiversity, which imperil our own future and quality of life on Earth.

-- Our forests are the main “carbon sinks” that absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide and give off life-sustaining oxygen. Warming temperatures are fueling the expansion of pine and spruce beetle outbreaks across North America, Europe and Siberia, ravaging tens of thousands of square miles of woodlands. Scientists warn that some forest ecosystems may never recover.

-- Because pesticides leach into groundwater and eventually into lakes and rivers, and are also lifted into the air in dust particles, they tend to spread to remote regions. This is why neonicotinoids -- banned in Europe, and implicated in causing birth defects in deer, birds and other animals -- have been found in deer throughout Minnesota and other states. These pesticides are used on commodity crops like corn and soybeans for animal feed and for export, and are responsible for the poisoning and decline of some birds and other insectivores, as well as many beneficial insects -- including pollinators. Insects most likely to survive are those whose larvae are protected inside the trees: the bark beetles. Millions of acres of dead and dying forests mean more devastating forest fires and more air pollution.

-- Particulate air pollution comes, especially, from the burning of fossil fuels. According to the EPA, this pollution causes early death (from both short-term and long-term exposure); cardiovascular harm (heart attacks, strokes, heart disease, congestive heart failure); respiratory harm (worsened asthma, worsened COPD, inflammation); may cause cancer and reproductive and developmental harm; and cause inflammatory and degenerative changes in brain, pancreatic and other organ functions.

-- Polluted cities mean less sunlight and solar-sourced vitamin D for inhabitants, which can increase their susceptibility to infection. So-called philanthropist Bill Gates is promoting another global “solution” that may cause far more harm than good by blocking UV light: He is now funding research proposing millions of tons of chalk dust be spread in the upper atmosphere to shade the Earth from the sun.

-- Exposure to DNA-damaging and immunosuppressing electropollution by telecommunication and other devices emitting nonionizing radiation and electromagnetic fields of varying intensity put people at risk where they live and work. 5G is of particular concern -- it is close to microwave cooking energy and is documented to kill insects.

-- The COVID-19 pandemic pales before the enormity of the issue of plastic pollution. Plastics are burned in many countries, releasing cancer- and birth defect-causing, lung- and brain-damaging dioxins and other chemicals into the air that eventually settle on the crops we eat and the waters we drink. Plastics in our oceans break down into microparticles, and are in the fish we eat, the water we drink and air we breathe, along with toxic chemicals that adhere to these microparticles.

Scientists have linked ocean microplastics with declines in ocean phytoplankton, which are a major source of atmospheric oxygen and a “sink” for absorbing carbon dioxide -- ecological services similar to what our declining forests provide for all life on planet Earth. Phytoplankton -- along with zooplankton, which are also harmed by microplastics -- are the foundation of the marine food chain, the other end of which is threatened by overfishing. A huge amount of carbon stored at the bottom of the ocean is released every year as massive fishing nets are dragged along the sea bed, whirling up marine sediment. Scientists estimate that carbon dioxide emissions from bottom-trawling amounts to 1 billion tons per year, on average -- exceeding carbon emissions from global air travel.

The COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic socioeconomic recovery should not distract us from the urgency of addressing the above interconnected issues in order to secure some quality of life for whatever generations are to inherit this Earth.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

DEAR READERS: Millennia before the advent of Christianity, Easter began as a pagan festival to celebrate the advent of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Like Christmas, Easter has now been commercialized and degraded.

Millions of hatchling chicks and ducklings, along with crates of baby rabbits, are shipped around the U.S. as Easter presents for children. Those few animals who survive are often put up for adoption shortly after the holiday. Children are at risk for infections acquired from these Easter presents, especially salmonellosis, and some are hospitalized with such infections. The U.S. government should prohibit this seasonal market in animal suffering and public health risk.

A more empathy-driven Easter would help the Greening of America. It could be a time to plant more trees and to turn our chemical lawns and bug-free flower gardens into buzzing, singing sanctuaries for harmless, beneficial and increasingly displaced indigenous plants and animals.

Easter, for me, is celebrating the return of spring -- first in the wood mosses greening through the melting snow of Minnesota. We have a cottontail rabbit family living in our former front lawn -- now a rewilded plot -- and the toads will soon be singing again. It is a time for community and ecology recovery and renewal.

DEAR DR. FOX: I run a holistic cat grooming business in the U.K. I groom cats in the comfort of their own homes, as I believe this is best for their mental well-being and reduces stress during the process.

I am currently reading your book “The Healing Touch for Cats,” which I am thoroughly enjoying. I’ve believed for many years that massage can benefit our feline friends hugely. I massage my own cats: One in particular absolutely loves it, and it’s helping her recover from emotional trauma.

I’m wanting to incorporate some massage techniques into my grooming work to make the groom as enjoyable and beneficial as possible, and I would love to teach my clients some tips so that they can help their own cats. I am qualified in basic massage techniques and have a good understanding of feline anatomy.

I notice the world is full of training courses for canine massage techniques, but there is little info on feline massage work. There’s probably a lot of people out there who wouldn’t even think massage would be something a cat could enjoy.

I’d be very grateful for your thoughts on this matter. -- E.C., Skipton, Yorkshire, U.K.

DEAR E.C.: I have found over the years that some cats become addicted to receiving slow, deep massages on a daily basis, while others prefer a gentle, less invasive touch. Cats are rather like people in these varied preferences. In many instances, cats come to accept deeper muscle and abdominal massage after first getting used to more superficial massages.

It is always good to make a few strokes initially, then pause and breathe slowly in harmony with the cat. The cat may then stretch and readjust, or start to knead with the front paws -- a real sign of relaxation and reversion to kittenish self-comforting behavior -- and even roll over and allow abdominal and paw massage.

Some cats have certain body areas they do not like to be touched, often around the base of the tail or the tummy. This may change when the cat becomes more trusting of the process. Some cats, whether because of temperament, prior trauma or underlying medical conditions (such as hyperthyroidism), may never accept being stroked for more than a few seconds, if that. Massage therapy may remain out of the question for such cats.

Studies have shown that massage can improve humans’ immune systems and help in the treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory conditions. By logical extension, my massage routine for cats will help the many suffering from often-undiagnosed arthritis, poor circulation, obesity and depression.

I urge you to incorporate into your grooming business some tips from my “Healing Touch for Cats” book, which has improved the lives of countless felines and their humans over the years. Many owners should be amenable to learning by observation as you show them how much pressure to apply.

Do take extra precautions during this COVID-19 pandemic -- and even when it is over -- because cats can be infected by people with the coronavirus. It may be only a matter of time before a mutant strain from cats infects people, as has happened on mink fur farms.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

DEAR READERS: I feel for the many Texans and others suffering the ravaging consequences of February’s winter storms. I feel deeply for the birds, sea turtles and other wild creatures, and the many outdoor horses and farm animals, freezing and starving to death across states where they are not adapted to such conditions.

Climatic crises like this -- and droughts, fires and floods in other regions of the world -- were predicted by myself and many others in the 1980s. We even presented evidence to Congress. Our main opponents were the multinational fossil fuel, hydroelectric, mining, agribusiness and timber industries. As an elected member of the Washington, D.C., branch of the Club of Rome, noted for its 1972 book “The Limits to Growth,” I appreciated the prescience of concerned scientists and economists about population growth and future socioeconomic security.

If these legitimate, documented climatic and population concerns had been addressed during the later decades of the 20th century, we would not have these 21st-century crises. We now find ourselves facing climate, refugee and migrant crises, along with unresolved racial, religious and political conflicts. Millions are malnourished, disenfranchised, unemployed, oppressed and desperate. With the extinction of philopatry -- the affirming love of home and native community -- come the pathologies of antipathy, apathy, despair and violence.

In Australian aboriginal lore, there is a revered natural energy force called the Rainbow Serpent, which tells the people when and where they will find water. I equate this with North America’s jet stream, the regular behavior of which makes for more predictable seasons and rains. Climatologists report that changes in the behavior of the jet stream caused by accelerated warming in the Arctic polar region are responsible for the devastating winter storms in the southern regions of the U.S.

Another climate-influencing “serpent,” the deep-sea Gulf Stream, is reported by oceanographers to be weakening due to climate change. This Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation -- a current that underpins much of the world’s weather -- is now at its weakest state in 1,000 years. The results could include storms and heat waves in Europe, and sea-level rises on the east coast of the United States.

The COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and the extinction crisis are all anthropogenic. We are too many to consume as much as we do. Many of our activities and industries, from agriculture to health care, are variously driven by fear and profitability with an overarching adversarial attitude toward nature. A tenet of Australian aboriginal law was never to take more from nature than you needed to sustain your basic needs -- otherwise, you would be impoverishing the resource base and the generations to come. The more disconnected we become from the living soil and from empathy for all living beings, the greater our dystopia and dysbiosis.

The February 2021 United Nations report “Making Peace With Nature” underscores the urgency to change how we perceive, relate and treat life on planet Earth, and the interlinked environmental crises we face today.

“Without nature’s help, we will not thrive, or even survive,” said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. This report provides the groundwork for enabling international collaboration to make the global economy sustainable and “green.” It is an urgent call to reset global government and address the interconnected crises we face today.

As Dr. George Brock Chisholm, the first director-general of the World Health Organization, once said: “To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family tradition, national patriotism, and religious dogmas.”

CORONAVIRUS INFECTS CAT AND DOG IN SAME FAMILY

A cat and dog from the same household in Brazos County, Texas, tested positive for the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2 first detected in the U.K. This is the first time that this variant has been detected in a pet. The animals, both elderly, were tested in February, two days after their owner was diagnosed with COVID-19. According to veterinarian Sarah Hamer at Texas A&M’s College of Veterinary Medicine, both pets developed mild sneezing, and both have recovered. (Full story: The Eagle, Bryan, Texas, March 16)

PET FOOD RECALL: BRAVO PACKING INC.

Bravo Packing Inc. of Carneys Point, New Jersey, is recalling all Ground Beef and Performance Dog pet foods. These raw products have the potential to be contaminated with salmonella and listeria monocytogenes. More details can be found at truthaboutpetfood.com.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)