In The News / Jan 27

Breaking News: California passes landmark rules to curb auto emissions.

Reshaping the next decade of America's auto industry, the California Air Resources Board on Friday approved historic new rules that require 15 percent of new cars sold in California by 2025 run on electricity, hydrogen or other systems producing little or no smog.

The board, meeting in Los Angeles, voted 11-0 to approve the package of "advanced clean car rules."
The rules also require automakers to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent on all new vehicles by 2025 and tailpipe emissions of soot and smog by roughly 75 percent over the same time period.

The greenhouse rules are nearly identical to new national rules being developed by the Obama Administration, and will result in new cars averaging 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, double today's fleet average for new cars.

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The Great Escape: Gene-altered crops grow wild.

Throughout North Dakota, little yellow flowers dot thousands of miles of roadsides. These canola plants, found along most major trucking routes, look harmless. But they are fueling a controversy: They prove that large numbers of genetically modified plants have escaped from farm fields and are now growing wild.

About 80 percent of canola growing along roadsides in North Dakota contains genes that have been modified to make the plants resistant to common weed-killers, according to a team of University of Arkansas researchers.

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New Science

Understand the latest scientific findings
  • Gas cooking emissions may stifle infant development. 26 January 2012

    A new study from Spain reports that infants born to mothers who cooked with gas stoves had slightly lower intelligence scores at ages 1 and 2 than those in homes without gas cookers. In homes with gas, infant scores were better if there was an exhaust fan above the stove. Gas stoves are so common that these small decreases in infant intelligence may lead to more children with lower IQs and fewer with higher IQs in the future. more…

  • Pessimistically, lead may taint your outlook. 20 January 2012

    Lead exposure may increase lifelong pessimism, according to a new study. Researchers found that lead levels in aging men were associated with increased pessimism even after controlling for other important factors such as socioeconomic status. Lead is known to affect the nervous system and affect intelligence, memory and behavior. Research also shows it is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. more…

Media Reviews

Scientists critique media coverage

Editorials

  • Failure to keep minutes of nuke meetings is unacceptable.

    It is distressing to know that there is no clear and shared awareness among top government officials of the importance and objectives of keeping official records of the government’s activities. more…

  • Obama has greens squirming a bit.

    When President Barack Obama promised this week to open 75 percent of potential offshore gas and oil resources to drilling and praised the controversial fracking method for extracting untapped oil reserves on land, a collective shudder went through his green constituency. more…

Opinions

  • ConocoPhillips' oil roads in Alaska are an unwelcome intrusion.

    What motivated the Obama administration to grant a permit to ConocoPhillips to bulldoze roads into the western Arctic, at such huge environmental cost, is not entirely clear. more…

  • Polar explorer: Make America climate-literate.

    We need young people to be able to understand the basics of the Earth's climate system, to know how to assess scientifically credible information about climate, to communicate about climate change in a meaningful way and, most important, to be able to make informed decisions about actions that affect the climate. more…

More news from EHN From Environmental Health News

Children near DuPont plant exposed to more PFOA than moms.

Children living near DuPont’s plant in West Virginia are exposed to much higher concentrations of an industrial chemical than their mothers, according to a newly published study.

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The scientist: Jim Hansen risks handcuffs to make his research clear.

NASA's chief climate scientist built his career studying Earth's atmosphere and modeling humans' potential impacts on climate. Then he realized that laboratory work was only part of the equation. A Climate Query.

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Low-carbon cement paves a development path (or sidewalk).

Carbon emissions from cement are set to grow explosively as developing countries such as India create a "first-world" infrastructure. Scientists and entrepreneurs are struggling to push alternative technologies out of the lab and onto the street.

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In The News (CONTINUED) / Jan 27

More news from today
>160 more stories today, including:
  • Study finds bird flu virus to be fast learner
  • Climate: Polar bears raid eider nests for food; Will warming hasten demise of big trees?
  • Federal regulators failed to act on toxic chemical, report says
  • Stories from France, Japan, China, Malaysia, India, Ecuador, Argentina, Haiti, Canada
  • US stories from VT, NY, NJ, PA, MD, MN, WI, IL, OH, LA, TX, UT, CA
  • Editorials: Pollution program flawed; Contain typhoid before it reaches crisis levels