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Bruce Friedrich: Eating As Though the Environment Mattered

Imagine taking 6-20 plates of food and dumping them in the trash, perfectly fresh and edible. Off they go to the landfill. Obviously, none of us would behave so wastefully.
And yet that’s precisely the effect each time any of us consumes meat, since the vast majority of the calories consumed by a chicken, pig, or [...]

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Student science experiment finds plants won’t grow near Wi-Fi router | MNN – Mother Nature Network

Cress Collage

Well here’s some news: radiation emitted from wireless devices such as cell phones and routers prevents seeds from sprouting; i.e., life from living. Thanks to David Kofahl for passing this one along:
“The students placed six trays filled with Lepidium sativum, a type of garden cress into a room without radiation, and six trays of the [...]

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Free Range milk

An idea whose time has come from The Ecologist:
The Ecologist office is set in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty within a United Nations Biosphere Reserve. Hartland peninsular is dotted with steep, wooded valleys where bluebells, early purple orchids and woodpeckers abound.The hills afford breathtaking views across the Bristol channel to Lundy Island, itself a nature [...]

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Green Drinks + Cinema Verde Film Screening JUNE 5

Cinema Verde Merges with Green Drinks to Present Film at Gators 4 Cinema
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
May 23, 2013
CONTACT: Trish Riley, 352-327-3560, Trish@CinemaVerde.org
      

Cinema Verde Environmental Film Festival merges with Green Drinks to feature environmental films at Gators 4 Cinema in the Oaks Mall Plaza, slated to reopen its doors this month. The first Cinema [...]

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2013 Farm Bill Approved By Senate Agriculture Committee

Pat Roberts

The Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday approved a massive five-year farm bill that would cut spending while also creating new subsidies for farmers.
The legislation approved 15-5 includes concessions to Southern rice and peanut farmers, thanks to a new top Republican on the committee, Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran. The bill eliminates $5 billion in annual subsidies, [...]

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Indian Tigers’ Genetic Diversity: Population Faces Extinction For Lack Of DNA Variety

tiger

As researchers have previously warned, Tigers in India may be a little too close for comfort — when it comes to their DNA, anyway.
A new study from Cardiff University has researchers concerned that Indian tigers face extinction because of a lack of “genetic diversity.”
Partnering with India’s National Center for Biological Sciences, researchers compared current DNA samples [...]

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Dozens expected to protest genetically altered food in a March Against Monsanto | Gainesville.com

More than 100 people from the Gainesville area are expected to join thousands of others around the world on Saturday to protest a corporation at the forefront of genetically modified crops and the use of insecticides. The March Against Monsanto spans more than 40 countries, with protests planned for about 250 cities, including 15 in [...]

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Grassroots reject EDF on fracking

NEARLY 70 GROUPS: ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND DOES NOT SPEAK FOR US ON FRACKING
“Greenwashing” Called Out: No Confusion Should Arise About Views of Local Communities As a Result of Shale Gas Industry’s Coopting of EDF
WASHINGTON, D.C.///May 22, 2013///A total of 68 leading grassroots organizations focused on citizen and environmental issues today released a joint letter to [...]

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Indonesia’s tropical forests set to benefit from further clearing ban

deforestation

A ban on the clearing of tropical forests in Indonesia is on the verge of being extended in a historic deal that could protect some of the world’s most threatened habitats.
Indonesia is home to about a third of the world’s remaining tropical forests, which provide a habitat for endangered species such as the orangutan and Sumatran tiger.
For [...]

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PG&E fine is appropriate, paper says

The Sacramento Bee weighs in with an editorial:
If it wins final approval, the eye-popping $2.25 billion penalty that the California Public Utility Commission’s Safety and Enforcement Division has recommended against Pacific Gas and Electric Co. will be the largest ever imposed against a utility in the United States.
PG&E officials predictably complained that it is excessive. [...]

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In a disputed reef, Philippines sees face of Chinese domination

China-Philippines dispute over Scarborough Shoal

Claimed by both China and the Philippines, the mostly underwater reef has come to represent the dangers of Chinese expansionism.
“Scarborough today — tomorrow the world,” read banners at an anti-China demonstration last year in Manila.
In its quest to become a maritime power and to tap potential undersea oil and gas reserves, China is asserting sovereignty [...]

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West Virginia’s coal industry faces huge drop

wcoal

Coal production in Southern West Virginia and the rest of central Appalachia will continue to plummet over the next 30 years, according to a new report that examines multiple stresses that are pressuring the region’s mining industry.
The report, from the Morgantown-based environmental consulting firm Downstream Strategies, says current government estimates project production to drop by 53 percent [...]

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Alaska: where politics and climate change go hand-in-hand

alaska

From Palin to Parnell, Alaska’s politicans have struggled to reconcile policy with actuality.
There is no disputing the real-time effects of climate change. Alaska is warming faster than anywhere else in America, setting off a circumpolar scramble for oil and other resources given up by the melting ice and threatening the livelihood of those who still [...]

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Rise Up or Die | Perspectives, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com

Mountaintop Mining

Corporations write our legislation. They control our systems of information. They manage the political theater of electoral politics and impose our educational curriculum. They have turned the judiciary into one of their wholly owned subsidiaries. They have decimated labor unions and other independent mass organizations, as well as having bought off the Democratic Party, which [...]

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Monsanto Found Guilty of Chemical Poisoning in Landmark Case | REALfarmacy.com | Healthy News and Information

monsanto-poison-sprayed-on-crops-041712

In 2007, France officially banned Lasso from use in the country in accordance with a European Union EU directive enacted in 2006 prohibiting the chemical from further use on crops in any member countries. But despite all the evidence proving that alachlor can disrupt hormonal balance, induce reproductive or developmental problems, and cause cancer, the [...]

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New York town bans fracking discussions

nyfrack

The small New York town of Sanford has enraged environmental groups by prohibiting all discussion of natural gas drilling at town board meetings and is now facing a lawsuit for violating free speech rights.
Those opposed to hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” have been unable to discuss their environmental concerns since the ban was implemented in September. [...]

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Why the Ethanol Boom Means More E. Coli Burgers

ethanol

Back in 2007, amid a boom in US corn-based ethanol, researchers at Kansas State University released a sobering study involving distillers grains—the mash that’s left over after corn has been fermented and distilled into ethanol. As various government programs ramped up ethanol production—and with it the price of corn—the livestock industry was increasingly turning to [...]

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EU agrees fishing overhaul to replenish stocks

fishprotest

European fisheries ministers on Wednesday agreed to end decades of overfishing and ban throwing unwanted fish back into the sea to restore stocks to healthy levels by 2020.
The agreement, which needs the approval of the European Parliament, could end haggling over annual fishing quotas and introduce long-term plans to grow fish stocks.
The deal, which took 36 hours of [...]

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Occupy the Farm movement rises again, hours after being raided

tractor

A guerrilla veggie-growing occupation of university-owned land in Albany, Calif., was busted by cops early Monday and thousands of zucchini, kale, squash, and other newly planted seedlings were plowed over. But the occupiers proved more resilient than a sprawling mint plant, returning Monday to replant the desecrated farm.
More than 100 activists had gathered at Gill Tract, near [...]

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Nuclear Protestors To Remain Jailed In Tennessee For Months

Sister Megan Rice And Two Others Await Fate In Nuclear Breakin Trial

A judge has ruled that a nun and two other protesters must remain in jail until they are sentenced in September for breaking into a nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee.
Sister Megan Rice and protesters Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed  were convicted Wednesday of sabotaging the plant and damaging federal property last year at the Y-12 [...]

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