Greenwashing

Major retailers capitulate to Monsanto

Ronnie Cummins of Organic Consumers Association takes the issue on:
“The policy set for GE alfalfa will most likely guide policies for other GE crops as well. True coexistence is a must.”   -  Whole Foods Market, Jan. 21, 2011
In the wake of a 12-year battle to keep Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered (GE) crops from contaminating the nation’s [...]

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Recent Posts

Can air fresheners make you sick? | Grist

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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 [...]

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Ag Gag bill introduced in Florida

Earlier this year a bill was introduced in Florida by Senator Jim Norman that would have made it a felony to take photos or video of a farm or agriculture operation.
The “Ag Gag” bill was openly supported by Big Ag and directed at both whistle-blowers who go undercover to document the cruelty that animals on [...]

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Under Industry Pressure, USDA Works to Speed Approval of Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered Crops | Truthout

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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 [...]

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The Wall Street-climate change connection – Global Warming – Salon.com

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Think “climate change” and the companies that come to mind are oil giants like Exxon Mobil or BP – not JP Morgan or Bank of America.
But a new study by Urgewald, a German environmental organization, establishes a strong link between large multinational banks and the coal industry, one of the biggest contributors to climate change.
The [...]

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Photos: Beijing and the rest of China once again attacked by smog : Shanghaiist

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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 [...]

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Progress Energy warned itself not to self manage Crystal River nuclear plant project – St. Petersburg Times

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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 [...]

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Quake exceeded TEPCO’s “once in 10,000 years” scenario – AJW by The Asahi Shimbun

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.

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 [...]

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Drilling Down – Fighting Over Oil and Gas Well Leases – NYTimes.com

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After Scott Ely and his father talked with salesmen from an energy company about signing the lease allowing gas drilling on their land in northeastern Pennsylvania, he said he felt certain it required the company to leave the property as good as new.
So Mr. Ely said he was surprised several years later when the drilling [...]

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Rallying for clean air in Springfield

Portland 976

By Chris Stewart – email
SPRINGFIELD, MA (WSHM) -
Protectors outside Deval Patrick’s Springfield office are hoping the governor hears their call.
“Hamden and Hampshire counties have really bad air quality in general,” says Max Anderson of the Sierra Club.
Asthma rates in western Massachusetts is much higher than in eastern Massachusetts, according to the Sierra club, who organized [...]

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Sierra Club leads air pollution protest outside Gov. Deval Patrick’s Springfield office | masslive.com

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Dozens of protesters took to the streets outside of Gov. Deval L. Patrick’s Springfield office on Saturday, calling for tougher clean air rules, retirement of the Mt. Tom coal-burning power plant and for opposition to proposed biomass plants in Western Massachusetts."It’s simple &38211 clean energy does not come out of a smokestack," said Jesse Lederman, [...]

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Oil companies use psy-ops to promote fracking

Last week’s oil industry conference at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Houston was supposed to be an industry confab just like any other — a series of panel discussions, light refreshments and an exchange of ideas.
It was a gathering of professionals to discuss “media and stakeholder relations” in the hydraulic fracturing [...]

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Gulf Oil Spill: BP, Transocean, Halliburton Cited Over Alleged Safety, Environmental Violations

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Federal regulators on Wednesday cited oil company BP PLC and two other companies – Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton – for alleged safety and environmental violations stemming from last year’s rig explosion and massive Gulf oil spill.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/bp-2-other-companies-cite_n_1007949.html?ir=Green

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Sierra Club says UF illegally withheld records in controversial fertilizer research | HeraldTribune.com

The environmental group Sierra Club has filed suit against the University of Florida, arguing that the institution illegally withheld records related to controversial research on fertilizer use.The suit stems from a paper published in 2009 that criticized counties, such as Sarasota, for passing laws restricting fertilizer use during the summer rainy season. The paper said [...]

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Nobel Winner: “Abandon Nuclear Power”

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Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe urged Japan’s new prime minister on Tuesday to halt plans to restart nuclear power plants and instead abandon nuclear energy.
Oe cautioned Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda against prioritizing the economy over safety. Noda has said he will allow idled nuclear plants to resume operation when their safety is confirmed.
via Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel [...]

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Ten Koch plants that put the most Americans at risk | iWatch News

Koch refinery

Koch Industries is lobbying to prevent tougher counter-terrorism standards for its facilities that use hazardous toxic chemicals. A terrorist attack or accident at Koch’s oil, chemical, paper and fertilizer plants, an iWatch News investigation revealed , could put tens of thousands of people and their homes, schools, hospitals, day care centers, factories and offices at [...]

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Impact of Gulf Spill’s Underwater Dispersants Is Examined – NYTimes.com

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In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, BP sought and obtained permission to use dispersants, detergent-like compounds, to break up the 200 million gallons of Louisiana sweet crude, into tiny droplets that would mix throughout the water column, trying to lessen the immediate impact of the oil slick on fragile coastal ecosystems.
via Impact [...]

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Salmonella taints poultry products

Eggs, from Simon Shane’s industry comments:

The revelation that a specific turkey plant in Arkansas operated by a prominent multinational agribusiness concern was responsible for an extensive outbreak of Salmonella Heidelberg in consumers is naturally of concern to the public health community and to the specific industry involved.

There is however a corollary which may [...]

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Al Gore Lets Loose In Aspen Institute Speech About Bull**** Anti Global-Warming Pseudo-Science

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Speaking in Aspen last Thursday, former Vice President Al Gore warned of the impacts of global warming. In sharp contrast to previous appearances, however, Gore may have frothed at the mouth a bit when he told the Aspen Institute’s ‘Networks and Citizenship’ panel not to believe those that dismiss global warming.
In a passionate rant, Gore [...]

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Pro-drilling group develops middle school curriculum

We need a new category: WTF????? -tr*
A jobs curriculum funded by the Marcellus shale industry could be in Western Pennsylvania middle schools as early as fall.
Four Marcellus shale drilling companies donated most of the $65,000 that the nonprofit Junior Achievement of Western Pennsylvania spent to research and develop its new Careers in Energy program, said [...]

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