Giant piles of debris from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami scar the country’s once picturesque northeast coast — and the clear-up is hamstrung by fears the rubbish may be contaminated by radiation.
Decades-worth of waste was left behind when the waters receded in March last year after claiming more than 19,000 lives.
The survivors are desperate to rebuild, [...]
A growing body of research suggests that exposure to BPA, or bisphenol-A, a synthetic chemical found in plastic, is more dangerous than previously thought.
The American Chemistry Council has defended the wide use of BPA and said that low doses of the chemical pose no human health risks. Still, the National Institutes of Health noted [...]
Tom Laskawy writes for Grist:
When I wrote recently about the next generation of genetically engineered seeds, I was in truth referring to the next next generation. The fact is that the next actual generation of seeds is already out of the lab and poised for approval by the USDA.
And I’m not talking about Monsanto’s recently approved [...]
On November 6, 2011, Bill McKibben arrived at Washington, D.C.’s, Lafayette Park to protest the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, designed to carry oil 1,700 miles from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. McKibben, a Vermont writer and environmentalist, had been one of 1,252 people arrested in front of the White House in [...]
India’s Environmental Support Group on Monsanto:
If you missed watching Al Jazeera’s The Stream special on Monsanto’s biopiracy in India while advancing Bt Brinjal, and its implications, you can catch it on You Tube. Its about 45 mins. long). The programme covers many diverse issues, in addition to biopiracy.
The programme was hosted by Derrick Ashong, musician [...]
Joel Achenbach proposes thinking about Spaceship Earth in other ways:
Spaceship Earth enters 2012 belching smoke, overheating and burning through fuel at a frightening rate. It’s feeling pretty crowded, and the crew is mutinous. No one’s at the helm.Sure, it’s an antiquated metaphor. It’s also an increasingly apt way to discuss a planet with 7 billion people, [...]
The JournalStar published this statement from a civil engineer who served as an inspector for TransCanada:
There has been a lot of talk about the safety of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
I am not an environmentalist, but as a civil engineer and an inspector for TransCanada during the construction of the first Keystone pipeline, I’ve had [...]
Let’s get the New Year off to a fresh start by tackling this sickening situation. In public spaces across the country, including offices, stores, restaurants, airports, and schools, air "freshener" is being forced upon us. Daily we are subjected to known carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, and other toxic substances. Sounds like a horror film, but it [...]
Here’s another interesting story I wrote this year..what a cool biz: Recycling humans and animals!-tr
RTI Biologics employs 700 people worldwide, 500 of these at the Alachua headquarters. The spotlessly clean facility operates 24/7, with receiving facilities always ready for gifts of human donated tissue, which are quarantined in freezers on first arrival, while testing and [...]
Japan’s response to the nuclear crisis that followed the March 11 tsunami was confused and riddled with problems, including an erroneous assumption an emergency cooling system was working and a delay in disclosing dangerous radiation leaks, a report revealed Monday.
The disturbing picture of harried and bumbling workers and government officials scrambling to respond to the [...]
HuffPo reports:
In a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, analyzing the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers found that agricultural giant Monsanto’s GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats.
According to the study, which was summarized by Rady Ananda at Food Freedom, “Three varieties of Monsanto’s GM corn [...]
David Zucchino of the Los Angeles Times reports one of the good stories of 2011:
December 25, 2011
Reporting from Yadkinville, N.C.
Loyd Bryant used to pump manure from his 8,640 hogs into a fetid lagoon, where it raised an unholy stink and released methane and ammonia into the air. The tons of manure excreted daily couldn’t be [...]
March 2011 marked the beginning of a preemptive lawsuit, with 83 plaintiffs joining forces against corporate giant Monsanto. Florida Organic Growers, a nonprofit organic certification and sustainable farming outreach group based in Gainesville, joined the fight in July. The 83 plaintiffs, representing a coalition of more than 270,000 farmers, are filing this lawsuit against Monsanto out of fear.
As concerns grow over the use of bisphenol A, or BPA, in consumer products ranging from water bottles to food cans, it’s already being phased out of certain items.But that doesn’t mean the average American can get through a day without exposure to BPA, a chemical that could cause a range of health issues, including [...]
For years, biotech agriculture opponents have accused regulators of working too closely with big biotech firms when deregulating genetically engineered (GE) crops. Now, their worst fears could be coming true: under a new two-year pilot program at the USDA, regulators are training the world’s biggest biotech firms, including Monsanto, BASF and Syngenta, to conduct environmental [...]
Though some Chinese media is still reporting the smog blanket currently engulfing Beijing as nothing more than a serious fog, the U.S. Embassy pollution monitoring index registered the city’s air as Beyond Index at 7pm Sunday night, with the level remaining at Hazardous since then.
Average visibility in the city has been between 1 to 3 [...]
Progress Energy’s disastrous do-it-yourself upgrade to the Crystal River nuclear plant was such a risky idea that the company’s own internal report warned against it.
The company’s lack of expertise and experience “outweigh strengths and opportunities,” the report said. “Those weaknesses cannot be changed to strengths in sufficient time to plan and implement” the project.
The report’s [...]
Tohoku Electric Power Company's Onagawa nuclear plant experienced a fire and the earlier story of a malfunction at the Tokyo Electric Power nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture, seems to be causing concern.
The movement of the bedrock under the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant during the Great East Japan Earthquake was larger than pre-quake estimates [...]
BP in a high-stakes court filing on Monday accused Halliburton of destroying damaging evidence about the quality of its cement slurry that went into drilling the oil well that blew out last year and caused the nation’s worst offshore oil spill. BP accused Halliburton of having intentionally destroyed evidence about possible problems with its cement [...]
NPR tells listeners about these scientists’ appeal to the public for help:
Marine biologists are turning to citizen scientists, sitting at home in front of their computers, to help unlock the secrets of whale songs.
In Pixar’s aquatic adventure Finding Nemo, Dory, voiced by Ellen DeGeneres, attempts to communicate with a whale to find the missing title [...]
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