Business & Finance

damage

Insurers Stray From the Conservative Line on Climate Change

If there were one American industry that would be particularly worried about climate change it would have to be insurance, right?

From Hurricane Sandy’s devastating blow to the Northeast to the protracted drought that hit the Midwest Corn Belt, natural catastrophes across the United States pounded insurers last year, generating$35 billion in privately insured property losses, $11 billion more than [...]

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Recent Posts

Backyard Chickens in the Gas Patch

Fish Creek Monitor remembers a favorite chicken and reflects on life near a fracking well:
Rest in Peace Maisy
March 11, 2008 – May 14, 2013
 

Our first baby chicks.  (March 2008)
The chick on the left is a Buff Orpington.  After researching various chicken breeds, we selected her because we read that they have docile temperaments and are [...]

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Monsanto’s thumb on academic publishing

Independent Science News reports on how Monsanto is influencing peer-reviewed scientific journals:
by Claire Robinson and Jonathan Latham, PhD
Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal, has jested that instead of scientific peer review, its rival The Lancet had a system of throwing a pile of papers down the stairs and publishing those that reached [...]

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Chiefs walk out of Keystone XL meeting

Indian Country reports:
ICTMN Staff

May 17, 2013

Elders and chiefs of at least 10 sovereign nations walked out of a meeting with U.S. State Department officials in Rapid City, South Dakota, on Thursday May 16 in which the government was attempting to engage in tribal consultation over the Keystone XL pipeline.
Deeming the meeting “invalid,” leaders of the [...]

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EPA mentions bees in insecticide approval

Common Dreams posts:
Ignoring Bee Crisis, EPA Greenlights New ‘Highly Toxic’ Pesticide
Green group: ‘The EPA continues to put industry interests first to exacerbate an already dire pollinator crisis.’
- Lauren McCauley, staff writer
Despite new findings that prove a heightened crisis in US bee populations and a recent ban in Europe on similar chemical applications, the Environmental Protection [...]

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Resource Strain Pushes Coca-Cola, Dow to Put Price Tags on Nature

cellpower

Companies are starting to consider the value of natural resources in making business decisions, a practice that will become increasingly important as those resources become further constrained, corporate representatives say.
The practice, called natural capital accounting, is a way for companies to accurately assess and manage risk, maintain their social license to operate, manage or lower [...]

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Copper industry re-writes NM pollution rules

By Laura Paskus for the Santa Fe Reporter
Close your eyes, and picture a radical.
Bill Olson is not that guy. With a neat brown beard and a fondness for western shirts and jackets, even the occasional bolo tie, he’s the quintessential water nerd. When asked, over coffee and a blueberry scone, to talk about groundwater, he [...]

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Follow the money in energy reporting

Union of Concerned Scientists
By Elliot Negin
[Editor's note: Elliott Negin, director of news and commentary at the Union of Concerned Scientists, shows how the U.S. news media routinely fail to inform the public about the fossil fuel industry funders behind climate change contrarian think tanks. Negin provides recommendations for how journalists can better serve the public [...]

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Asian workers need union protection

By Elizabeth Grossman, reporting from Bangkok, Thailand
As bodies of workers continued to be pulled from the wreckage of the collapsed Rana Plaza factory complex outside Dhaka, Bangladesh, pushing the death toll past 900, and news was breaking of at least seven deaths in a garment factory fire in Bangladesh on May 9, labor rights advocates [...]

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OMB: EPA regulations SAVE money

Living on Earth explores the cost of not regulating pollution”
Critics argue that EPA regulation is costly to business and the US economy. But a new report from OMB shows that the financial benefits of environmental regulation outweigh the costs ten-fold. Harvard Professor Joe Aldy talks with host Steve Curwood about benefits of EPA rules
Transcript
CURWOOD: From [...]

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Europe protects food as US doesn’t

Mother Jones reports:
Last week, the European Commission voted to place a two-year moratorium in most uses of neonicotinoid pesticides, on the suspicion that they’re contributing to the global crisis in honeybee health (a topic I’ve touched on here, here, here, and here). Since then, several people have asked me whether the Europe’s move might inspire [...]

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Calif. sues: Lead in candied ginger, plum

ginger

The state of California is suing Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Target and other retailers and candy makers, claiming the companies have exposed consumers to illegal lead levels in their candied plum and ginger products.
The lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court by the state attorney general’s office, accuses the retailers of knowingly selling [...]

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Coal enjoyed record exports in 2012

coal

Illinois’ abundant high-sulfur coal once shunned as a pollution source by U.S. utilities saw record demand oversees last year even as domestic coal providers broadly curtailed production as cheaper, competing natural gas crimped their sales, according to new report Wednesday.
Energy Ventures Analysis Inc.’s study, commissioned by the Illinois Office of Coal Development, found that 13 million tons [...]

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Some Retailers Rethink Their Role in Bangladesh

bangladesh

Ever since a building with garment factories collapsed in Bangladesh last week, killing more than 400 people, Western apparel companies with ties to the country have scrambled to address public concerns about working conditions there.
Benetton repeatedly revised its accounts of goods produced at one of the factories, while officials at Gap, the Children’s Place and other retailers huddled [...]

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New England oysters face climate threat

oysters

More than 350 oyster farmers now cultivate bottom leases in the shallow waters along the Northeastern seaboard, according to the Northeast Regional Aquaculture Center, up from handfuls 25 years ago. The rewards are great. With an insatiable half-shell market, gross profits are high and demand constant. But the challenges may be greater.
The Northeast’s boutique oyster [...]

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A Bid to Put Money Behind Slow Food Movement

slow

The Slow Money National Gathering in Boulder, Colo., brought together small and local food enterprises with financiers as an antidote to big agriculture.
As venture capitalists increasingly bet on food start-ups, Slow Money, a nonprofit that catalyzes the flow of capital to small and local food enterprises, supports what Mr. Tasch called the heroic grunts: the [...]

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Green Drinks at Brew Spot May 1!

Greetings, Green Gainesville!
We’re pleased to announce that our next
Green Drinks meeting will be held at the new
The Brew Spot Café
1000 NE 16th Ave.
May 1, 6 – 8 p.m.

When was the last time you did a chemistry experiment? Jeff Keaffaber, co-owner of The Brew Spot Café, has a treat for you and anyone who wants [...]

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First Ag-Gag prosecution filed — and dropped

The case was dropped, as reported in the Salt Lake Tribune:
One day after the case made headlines, Draper prosecutors have dismissed a misdemeanor against an animal-welfare activist who filmed a Utah slaughterhouse.
Prosecutors on Tuesday dropped the case against Amy Meyer, who had faced a class B misdemeanor for agricultural-operation interference. Prosecutors filed the charge in [...]

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Ag-Gag laws protecting the corporate

Susie Cagle writes for Grist:
There’s a Paul McCartney quote popular with veg-heads: “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.” It may not be quite as simple as all that, but he’s definitely got a point.
For a little over 10 years, groups such as Mercy for Animals, the Humane Society of the United [...]

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Gold Rush in the Jungle

Gold Rush Cover Image 675 KB

Deep in the jungle where the borders of Vietnam meet those of Laos and Cambodia is a region known as “the lost world.” Large mammals never seen before by Western science have popped up frequently in these mountains in the last decade, including a half-goat/half-ox, a deer that barks, and a close relative of the [...]

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