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In The News /
Feb 8
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Farmers from Saskatchewan and South Dakota, Mississippi and Massachusetts lined the walls of a packed federal courtroom in Manhattan last week, as their lawyers told a judge that they were no longer able to keep genetically modified crops from their fields.
New York Times
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Is $26 million worth the reputation of a venerable, 1.4 million member environmental group? Last week's revelations about the 120-year-old Sierra Club's hushed financial marriage to the natural gas industry — and its just-as-secretive divorce — have left some long-time supporters feeling angry, betrayed or misled.
Politico
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When U.S. government scientists sampled the air from a tower north of Denver, Colorado, they expected urban smog — but not strong whiffs of what looked like natural gas. They eventually linked the mysterious pollution to a nearby natural-gas field. Their latest evidence suggests that natural gas might not be much better than coal for the climate.
Nature
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Around the same time the water started going weird in Pavillion, Wyoming, EnCana started increasing oil and gas production, and residents began noticing things like intense headaches, loss of smell and taste, memory problems and respiratory issues.
Indian Country Today
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Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s old gas lines are riddled with potentially lethal weld flaws, and new welding that the company's crews did during pipeline testing last year is suspect, two veteran welders told state regulators this week.
San Francisco Chronicle, California
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Less than two years ago, the British oil company BP was worried about its very survival as an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico threatened its finances and reputation. But on Tuesday, BP expressed renewed confidence in its future, reporting $7.7 billion in profit for the fourth quarter of 2011, a 38 percent increase from a year earlier.
New York Times
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An international watchdog said Tuesday it will cost about $4 million to clean up toxic lead and secure mines in northern Nigeria, where activists say "the worst outbreak of lead poisoning in modern history" has taken place.
Associated Press
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PPG Industries has been selling house paint high in lead content in the African nation of Cameroon for years, and although it says it stopped production of that paint late last year, it has rejected a request that it recall or accurately label its lead paints now selling in stores there.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pennsylvania
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Big polluters can get big state and EU support to improve their performance; small ones can get peanuts or nothing at all.
Prague Czech Position, Czech Republic
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The Pennsylvania Senate on Tuesday passed legislation that would authorize a tax on the shale gas industry and set uniform standards for development, changes that critics said would leave many municipalities with little control over the use of their land.
New York Times
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At the end of an empty road just north of Highway 58 and past the outfield wall of an abandoned high school looms the towering Lehigh Southwest Cement plant – a behemoth kiln that belches mercury and other toxics into the air, as it has for decades.
California Watch
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The Wild West spirit lives on in a dispute between government agencies and a landowner in the Sierra Nevada foothills that some officials describe as one of the most egregious cases of illegal mining they have ever encountered.
Associated Press
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In 2008, Dicks secured a $1.82 million earmark for a Washington state agency that worked to clean up Puget Sound and where his son worked as executive director; spawning charges of nepotism, waste and no-bid contracts, according to state audits and political opponents.
Washington Post
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A scientific report issued by Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration predicts that the Louisiana coast could see about 3 feet of sea level rise along the already low and vulnerable Louisiana coast by 2100 — a prediction that leaves this Cajun coast drowning and under siege from storm surge for decades to come.
Associated Press
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Climate change impacts may turn out to be a catalyst for worsening conflict. If so, keeping an eye on local politics and the quality of governance could be as important in heading off climate crises as breeding drought-resistant crops or protecting forests, climate security experts said at a recent meeting in London.
Reuters
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By Dashka Slater
Mother Jones
8 February 2012
When biologist Tyrone Hayes discovered that a top-selling herbicide – atrazine – messes with sex hormones, its manufacturer went into battle mode. Thus began one of the weirdest feuds in the history of science.
Hayes is not like other scientists. To be sure, he publishes in all the right journals and presents his work at the key scientific meetings, but he has also spearheaded a public outcry against atrazine, testifying at government hearings, appearing in all forms of media, and even launching an anti-atrazine website.
more…
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By Jeremy P. Jacobs
E&E Daily
8 February 2012
The American Chemistry Council significantly ramped up its lobbying efforts in the fourth quarter of last year, spending more than double its total for any quarter in recent history.
ACC, the chief lobbying arm of the chemical manufacturing industry, spent $5.37 million in the fourth quarter. The total represents the fifth most of any lobbying operation on Capitol Hill during that period, outspending the perennially deep-pocketed efforts of General Electric Co. and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis conducted for E&E Daily.
more…
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New Science
Understand the latest scientific findings
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Overweight children tend to have higher levels of certain phthalate metabolites in their urine, according to a year-long study of minority children in New York City. Researchers found that a 10-fold increase in MEP concentrations was associated with subsequent increases in body mass index and waist size. This is the first study to examine the association between phthalate exposure and body weight measures in children. Prior studies in teens and women find a similar association between the same phthalate – MEP – and the same two body measures. more…
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Researchers from Boston University and Harvard University found more than 100 different prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications and dietary supplements contain phthalates as inactive ingredients. That is, the chemicals do not act as medicines but instead carry and deliver the medicinal ingredients. It's no secret that pharmaceuticals contain phthalates. What's surprising is the extent of their use in such different types of products, including nutritional supplements. more…
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http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/frontpage/media_review/inspector.html
Media Reviews
Scientists critique media coverage
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The Montreal Gazette prints 20 key points to help the public interpret chemical science but a scientist specializing in green chemistry explains why not all of them hit the mark. more…
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A Time Magazine article misses an opportunity to consider the effect of environmental chemicals on fish sex development. more…
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A CBS Evening News report confuses two pollutants while explaining the impact of Chinese pollution and sandstorms on California's weather. more…
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http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/frontpage/editorials/inspector.html
Editorials
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Wall Street Journal
The charges for Europe's carbon permit scheme won't come due until next year, so there's still time for Europe to see reason. Alternatively, Europe can help spark a global trade war nobody can afford over a tax nobody needs in furtherance of an anticarbon nirvana that never will come to pass.
more…
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Beckley Register-Herald
If you think the path the Obama administration’s operation of the EPA is headed down is good for West Virginia, you’d better think again because our state’s economy is still dialed directly into coal mining and it is under attack.
more…
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Opinions
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Mike Di Paola
Bloomberg News
Something awful is happening over the Marcellus Shale, the vast geological formation in eastern North America where energy companies are looking for natural gas. There are complaints about ruined landscapes and fouled groundwater. And increasingly there is evidence that animals are suffering.
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Derrick Z. Jackson
Boston Globe
Mercury is getting into a wide range of birds from global pollution from coal burning, incinerators, and mineral mining smelters in developing countries. The magnitude of mercury assures that we cannot be done with it.
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By Douglas Fischer
Daily Climate
6 February 2012
Economics and political cues dictate climate change concern for a public that has a remarkably short attention span on the topic, researchers find. Science-based education efforts have 'only a minor effect.'
more…
By Amy Silverstein
Daily Climate
2 February 2012
Half of the 16 scientists who penned a controversial Wall Street Journal opinion piece proclaiming there is "no need to panic" about global warming have ties to either the oil and gas industry or groups dedicated to debunking climate science, a DailyClimate.org investigation has found.
more…
By Douglas Fischer
Daily Climate
31 January 2012
Disclosures about greenhouse gas emissions and carbon-reduction strategies can lift a company's economic value, a new study has found.
more…
By Lindsey Konkel
Environmental Health News
27 January 2012
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.
more…
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Hot Topics
From today's news and archives
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http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/frontpage/in_the_news_contd/inspector.html
In The News (CONTINUED) /
Feb 8
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The president of the Maldives resigned yesterday in what one aide described as a coup d’etat.
President Mohamed Nasheed has been credited with bringing democracy to the archipelago and raising awareness of the impact of global warming, at one point holding a cabinet meeting subsea, in scuba gear. Edinburgh Scotsman, United Kingdom
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Heavy snowfall across eastern Europe cut off hundreds of villages on Tuesday and rescue teams struggled to evacuate people in southern Bulgaria where rain and melting snow had caused a dam wall to break, flooding an entire village. Reuters
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Shanghai authorities are on alert after a chemical leak polluted the Yangtze River, the main source of water for China's most populous city, although there appeared to be no health threats, the Shanghai Daily newspaper reported on Wednesday. Reuters
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A river in China is poisoned with the toxic chemical cadmium, but a local hospital put up a notice forbidding doctors from diagnosing patients with cadmium poisoning. Epoch Times
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A doctor working to determine what is causing more than a dozen teenage girls to experience uncontrollable tics said all the girls that he has seen have tested positive for two types of infections. Buffalo WGRZ TV, New York
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Three US consumer groups petitioned the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday to subject a new genetically-engineered salmon to a more rigorous review process than is now in place before the fish can be approved as safe to eat. Reuters
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Scientists have revealed desirable traits can become more common in a population over generations without changing a person's genetic code. Researchers at Sydney's Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute say characteristics can become more prevalent via "epigenetic changes" which can also be reversed. Australian Associated Press
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Editorials: House transportation bill doesn't deserve passage; Europe flies into clean air turbulence
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