Rehabilitating Carson: "Why do some people continue to hold Rachel Carson responsible for millions of malaria deaths?"
posted on Jun 2, 2008 - View this thread

New maps show US fossil fuel emissions aren't where we thought they were. The Vulcan Project collects more accurate data at a higher resolution than previous studies. Explanatory video. via
posted on Apr 7, 2008 - View this thread

A two-ton 21-mpg 8-passenger V8 Chevy Tahoe? America, meet your 2008 Green Car of the Year!
posted on Nov 27, 2007 - View this thread

Superfund365 is an online data visualization application by Brooke Singer. Each day for the next year, Superfund365 will visit one of the EPA’s Superfund sites and collect data on contaminants, corporate responsibility, photos of the sites, and stats on local inhabitants. In the end, it will have 365 visualizations of some of the worst toxic sites in the U.S. [Via The Underwire.]
posted on Sep 25, 2007 - View this thread

Not ones for subtlety, the Death of Environmentalism guys (previously) are at it again with a Manifesto for a New Environmentalism. Their Apollo Alliance is getting early support from both Clinton and Obama. But it's not the only "new environmentalism" out there. There's this New Environmentalism, while others would include both market-based approaches among the the idols of old environmentalism.
posted on Sep 20, 2007 - View this thread

Imaging a Shattering Earth: Contemporary Photography and the Environmental Debate.
posted on Sep 15, 2007 - View this thread

Industrial Scars. Photography by J. Henry Fair. [Via The Underwire.]
posted on Aug 8, 2007 - View this thread

Bisphenol A: this extremely common chemical leaches out of food packaging and plastics, and was long considered safe. But a number of recent studies link it to developmental problems and cancer in lab animals in doses far lower than the current regulatory limit. Canada and the United States both review the scientific data available in the coming months, but critics already worry the process will be corrupted by industry. Industry, of course, insists that BPA is safe.
posted on Apr 7, 2007 - View this thread

Cheatneutral. "When you cheat on your partner you add to the heartbreak, pain and jealousy in the atmosphere. Cheatneutral offsets your cheating by funding someone else to be faithful and NOT cheat. This neutralises the pain and unhappy emotion and leaves you with a clear conscience." [Via Gristmill.]
posted on Feb 13, 2007 - View this thread

When I grow up I want to be an environmental engineer. I want to work on projects that can provide potable water for people. I want to clean the polluted Mother Ganga [Ganges] who provides life giving water from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. Or the Nile, both blue and white, spilling fertility from her bunds on a regular cycle. I want to design products that use the least amount of energy and fuel, from recycled materials and are biodegradable. I want to seek alternative sources of energy, such as using biofuel to power cellphones. I want to design with maximum constraints. Call her mother earth, gaia, demeter, ceres or inanna, our planet is on the brink of no return. Or is it all just a matter of perspective?
posted on Feb 9, 2007 - View this thread

Dead Ringers: the Science Museum asks us the question "should we upgrade our mobile phone?" "No" and "no" say the Times and the Observer, but we still do: on average every 18 months. What's the problem? Well it isn't just the lead, arsenic, beryllium and brominated fire-retardant cases (pollutants all) disappearing into our land fills (which are not covered by the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive [WEEE] in Europe). Coltan also goes into our phones. It occurs mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and as such our demand for upgrades has been contributing to a war (despite mobile phone companies' claims to the contrary, coltan is not regulated like timber). If we must upgrade, we can at least recycle or hack our old phones.
posted on Aug 7, 2006 - View this thread

Tour America’s Toxic Towns. First off is Times Beach, MO. Uncle Sam bought the town for $32 million, disincorporated it, and evacuated its 2000 residents to spare them from levels of dioxin that were possibly 2,000 times higher than the dioxin content in Agent Orange. Next up is Centralia, PA, completely evacuated due to an underground coal fire that is still burning and may burn for the next 100 years. More recently, American Electric Power purchased Cheshire, OH for $20 million. The town, which was plagued by sulfurous clouds, is now completely deserted. And who can forget the granddaddy of toxic towns, Love Canal.
posted on Jun 2, 2006 - View this thread

CO2: We Call it Life. Actual ads being run by the "Competitive Enterprise Institute," heavily funded by oil companies such as Exxon-Mobil, to counter the growing concerns about global warming and carbon dioxide emissions.
posted on May 18, 2006 - View this thread

Reflected in the worsened respiratory health of NYC residents (via the WTC Health Registry), a federal judge ruled (NYT; bugmenot) former Bush administration EPA chief and NJ governor Christine Todd Whitman misled New York City residents about air quality after the attacks of 9/11. Whether or not the then-head of the Environmental Protection Agency was pressured by Bush economic policy director Lawrence Lindsey to "get the financial markets open quickly" (longer 9/11 commission report) despite concerns, her PR consulting firm continues to do greenwashing for petrochemical corporations with very poor environmental records, including FMC, responsible for 136 Superfund sites across the country.
posted on Feb 4, 2006 - View this thread

Illinois issues its first ever winter dirty-air alert today. For the first time ever in the winter, health officials are issuing a dirty-air alert for the midwest. "Even healthy adults and children are cautioned against heavy physical activity outdoors." This is something the Clean Air Act sought to prevent in 1990. Despite real world warnings like this - there still seems to be constant debate about how much we should really care about environmental issues such as global warming and a host of other environmental issues. Will the new Clear Skies Act be enough to help?
posted on Feb 3, 2005 - View this thread

Global dimming. It's official. Particulate pollution in the air has decreased the amount of sunlight reaching the earth. How much? A fraction of a percent? Try 10% globally over the past 50 years. Worse yet, global dimming is thought to be counteracting CO2 and its greenhouse effect, lessening the worldwide temperature increase called global warming. Why's that bad? Because, in the coming decades, particulate pollution is expected to level off, while CO2 emissions are expected to rise strongly, multiplying the effects of global warming as we know it. "That means a temperature rise of 10 degrees Celsius by 2100 could be on the cards, giving the UK a climate like that of North Africa, and rendering many parts of the world uninhabitable." Holy fucking shit! [via kottke]
posted on Jan 14, 2005 - View this thread

Told you plastic is nasty.... Most of plastic that somehow reached the ocean floats in the North Pacific Gyre[look at Currents], an exotic name for an area of the Pacific ocean with a surface larger then U.S.A, dreaded by sailors for its lack of winds and called by some World largest Landfill. The people at Algalita Marine Research Foundation have made this nice video[Quicktime] showing how tons and tons of tiny plastic particles have been accumulating in the area for the last 50 years, slowly entering the food chain. Why does that bother us who live thousand of miles away ? Because we're on the top of the food chain and because that plastic is a sponge of hazardous chemicals.[Via tpl1212's link in another unrelated story]
posted on Dec 16, 2004 - View this thread

Microscopic fragments of plastic are a "major pollutant", floating in the ocean, settling on seabeds, and washing up onshore - with unknown consequences for marine ecosystems, according to a new study. "We've found this microscopic plastic material at all of the sites we've examined," [lead researcher] Dr Richard C Thompson [of University of Plymouth, UK] said. "Interestingly, the abundance is reasonably consistent. So, it suggests to us that the problem is really quite ubiquitous."
posted on May 7, 2004 - View this thread

Buying Up the Right to Pollute. "Power companies that release more SO2 than their permits allow must attempt to buy more allowances at the auctions, or purchase them at a premium from companies that have allowances to spare. Those that can't gather enough allowances or that go beyond certain emissions limits in a given year face strict fines from the EPA." (from a 4/7 Wired article) You may have heard of these "allowances" before, but the Acid Rain Retirement Fund, a non-profit, is doing something about them: *buying* them and simply letting them expire. Search NetworkForGood for "ARRF" to make a donation. [via our own CTP's Recursive Irony]
posted on Apr 13, 2004 - View this thread

Neato Next Generation Truck Stops IANAT (I am not a trucker), so I had no idea trucks could just plug into truck stops complete with air conditioning, power, internet, satellite TV, etc. And the bonus is that these facilities are environmentally friendly since the truck doesn't have to be left running all night.
posted on Jan 11, 2004 - View this thread

Global Dimming. Records show that over the past 50 years the average amount of sunlight reaching the ground has gone down by almost 3% a decade. "It's an extraordinary thing that for some reason this hasn't penetrated even into the thinking of the people looking at global climate change. It's actually quite a big deal and I think you'll see a lot more people referring to it."
posted on Dec 19, 2003 - View this thread

The Bush administration's conservation policy: 'protecting the nation's environment', or you know, 'not'? [more inside]
posted on Dec 17, 2003 - View this thread

EPA misled public on 9/11 pollution
"In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available."
posted on Aug 23, 2003 - View this thread

As the Alberta government ratchets up its campaign against the Kyoto Protocol (and the Canadian government's support thereof), two environmental groups release a report that argues that Canadians could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent and save $30 billion a year in the process by 2030 (PDFs of the report summary and full report). And, if reducing emissions starts at home, you can apparently cut your own energy bills and emissions in half simply by stopping leaks and drafts in your house.
posted on Oct 6, 2002 - View this thread

The State of the Nation's Ecosystems - According to a report commissioned five years ago by President Clinton and finally completed and released, the United States may have no streams left that are free from chemical contamination, and about one-fifth of animal species and one-sixth of plant types are at risk of extinction.
posted on Sep 25, 2002 - View this thread

Brown Cloud threatens SE Asia Having flown into Mumbai a couple of times over the past years, and to Singapore once, I thought I saw this, but passed it up to gunk on the windows. Turned out it was gunk in the sky.
posted on Aug 12, 2002 - View this thread

The Sky Trust would sell a gradually diminishing number of carbon emission permits to the approximately 2,000 oil, gas and coal companies that bring fossil fuels into the U.S. economy. With the income from these sales, the Sky Trust would pay equal yearly dividends to every American.

An interesting idea, but it seems like any group that plans to ask congress for a charter so they can control the sky would need to think things out a little more. Would auto manufacturers be charged for the emissions made by the vehicles they produce? Would the private citizens who buy them? And what is to stop any corporation from simply, say, opening shop in another country to avoid the hassles. But, the largest question in my mind was, who actually expects the current government to do anything that would place environmental matters over commerce?
posted on Aug 10, 2002 - View this thread

Silent Evidence - Ronald Bailey insists that Rachel Carson's campaign against DDT in "Silent Spring" is filled with bad science and has resulted in millions of unnecessary deaths due to increased malaria rates. The US Government has also considered removing the ban on DDT, as has Roger Bate in the Wall Street Journal.
posted on Jun 27, 2002 - View this thread

Very high level of PCBs in whale raises alarms. "The orca found dead on the Olympic Peninsula earlier this year carried a level of contaminants that was among the highest -- if not the highest -- ever measured in killer whales, laboratory tests show". If that is the case with free ranging whales then I shudder to think what similar measurements on city dwelling humans will reveal. Does anyone know of similar contaminant research on humans? (via Baloney.com)
posted on May 13, 2002 - View this thread

"a huge victory for breathers" of course industry "experts" beg to differ: "EPA tends to overstate health concerns," said Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute.
posted on Mar 27, 2002 - View this thread

As if one really need another reason to hate the Bush Administration. I mean, who needs clean air if some of GWB's oil buddies can make some more money?
posted on Jan 8, 2002 - View this thread

Plot to undermine global pollution controls revealed
"A secret group of developed nations conspired to limit the effectiveness of the UN's first conference on the environment, held in Stockholm in 1972. "
posted on Jan 3, 2002 - View this thread

Monsanto Hid Decades Of Pollution. Short version: PCBs, small Alabama town, Monsanto knew about problems, told no one, and ignored warnings. Neal Stephenson fans will find the descriptions of the toxic effects of PCBs eerily familiar.
posted on Jan 1, 2002 - View this thread

Pollution Linked to Birth Defects in Recent Study. There is no better example of "terrorism" than maiming children simply to further bloat the wallets of the rich. Of course, our fearless right-wing leaders are right on top of the problem.
posted on Dec 29, 2001 - View this thread

Trains and boats and planes. As the international environmental elite flies around the world attending conferences on global warming, earth-friendly toilets, whale saving, etc., these guys pause and figure out that jetting around kerosine-guzzling aircraft makes them part of the very problem they are trying to solve. So they travel to their next conference overland. Good start, fellows. Beyond warming up the air (actually a good thing, if you ask me), jets degrade the environment by needing to be served by city-sized airports, with all their attendent horrors, and by being damned noisy (I'll never forget the lovely silence that followed the air lockdown following 9-11). Besides walking to work, how else can conscientious eco-types put their money where their mouths are?
posted on Nov 14, 2001 - View this thread

Our environment is improving. Good work, guys. Favorite quote: "Cleaner fuels and clampdowns on emissions mean the last time sulfur dioxide emissions in London were so low was in the 16th century. "
posted on Jun 29, 2001 - View this thread

Bush Tries to Change Advisor's Mind on pollution policy. That does not work. President Bush does what he wants. EPA leaks Witman's Private Memo.
posted on Mar 27, 2001 - View this thread

Compressed Natural Gas is much more cleaner than diesel, the dual-fuel engines run quieter and you get lower operating costs. It's certainly very promising, and the technology is already widely implemented from busses to vans to trucks. However, changing a truck to this system can be costly, especially for small fleets. With this and the lack of fueling stations across the nation, do you still think this might be a good option for the future?
posted on Jan 18, 2001 - View this thread

Terrific News in Mexico City: Air Is Sometimes Breathable. Strict environmental rules have reduced air pollution levels to below life-threatening levels, and produced this great headline too.
posted on Jan 5, 2001 - View this thread

OK, with all of the whining, crying and teeth gnashing over the electoral process interfering with our oh so happy worker bee lives, I've decided to link to something much more important:

High stakes at The Hague

Clinton's climate change warning

'Massive' pollution cuts needed

Since climate change disaster is preparing to bite us all in the ass and no one seems likely to do anything about it, than it doesn't really matter who gets elected president, now does it?

Kudos to the american press for ignoring this story. . .
posted on Nov 12, 2000 - View this thread

Click for Clean Air. "Canada argues that clearcutting our old-growth forests and replanting them, and building nuclear reactors in developing countries, is more effective than reducing fossil-fuel pollution. It also wants to buy "pollution rights" from countries like Russia that are burning less fossil fuel because their economies have collapsed."

Not that Canada's alone in the above, and not that the solution is a click away, but you have to start somewhere. For those of you who aren't Canadian, David Suzuki is a respected scientist and public figure who's been worth listening to since...since...forever.

If you're not Canadian, you can still participate.....
posted on Sep 21, 2000 - View this thread