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As a new climate and energy bill winds its way through the U.S. Senate, opponents and watchdog groups are voicing concerns that the proposed legislation could strip power away from the Environmental Protection Agency and individual states.
According to reports, a draft in progress from Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) would call for greenhouse gas curbs across multiple economic sectors, with a target of reducing emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. Power plant emissions would be regulated in 2012, with other major industrial sources phased in starting in 2016.
The three met with industry leaders on March 17 to discuss features of the bill. Among the potentially controversial items: Restricting the EPA’s powers to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and curbing states’ climate laws and regulations.
Even after monumental clean-ups that rescued the Great Lakes from acid rain and industrial dumping in the 20th Century, these national water resources continue to suffer environmental assaults.
Sewage overflows into the lakes — some 25 billion gallons of untreated sewage from 20 cities in 2008 — have resulted in waters that periodically test positive for dangerous levels of E coli in 2008, according to a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
[caption id="attachment_9307" align="alignright" width="164" caption="Asian Carp (Photo: US Fish and Wildlife Service.)"][/caption]
For more than a decade the energy industry has steadfastly argued before courts, Congress and the public that the federal law protecting drinking water should not be applied to hydraulic fracturing [2], the industrial process that is essential to extracting the nation’s vast natural gas reserves. In 2005 Congress, persuaded, passed a law prohibiting such regulation.
Now an important part of that argument — that most of the millions of gallons of toxic chemicals that drillers inject underground are removed for safe disposal, and are not permanently discarded inside the earth — does not apply to drilling in many of the nation’s booming new gas fields.
Three company spokesmen and a regulatory official said in separate interviews with ProPublica that as much as 85 percent of the fluids used during hydraulic fracturing is being left underground after wells are drilled in the Marcellus Shale, the massive gas deposit that stretches from New York to Tennessee.
Star Market at Chestnut Hill in Newton, Mass., recently became the first grocery store in the nation to receive US Environmental Protection Agency’s GreenChill Partnership platinum store award. The advanced refrigeration technology in the new store, which is part of the Shaw’s line of supermarkets, significantly reduces its impact on climate change and the stratospheric ozone layer by cutting the use of refrigerants by 85 percent compared with the typical supermarket.
Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, called the store’s efforts “wicked cool.”
Squint and you can’t see them. Try a standard microscope. They’re still not there.
And yet, they’re everywhere. Nanoparticles are in hundreds, if not thousands, of consumer products, from sunscreen to child car seats to sports socks.
So the EPA has decided to take a closer look at these eensy particles, to investigate their potential to harm humans and the environment.
Nanos, which are about 1/100,000 of the width of a human hair and have been aggregating in consumer goods faster than E coli at a feed lot, have raised concerns among environmentalists, public health officials and others. These guardians of the environment want to know more about how nanos act in water. air and soil, and also whether they can invade and damage human tissue.
Here’s a little cautionary tale about how bigger is not always better, and knowing who to blame doesn’t necessarily solve the problem. It’s also about the inter-connectedness of our energy and food systems, and specifically how coal-fired power plants affect your diet.
Say you were camping with friends and caught a really BIG fish. This squirming monster would give you bragging rights for a year. Now say you caught a smaller fish, suitable for pan frying but not Kodak-worthy.
What do you do? If you’re Daniel Boone, you toss the little guy back. But if you’re a post-industrial age sportsman or woman, you will want to consider this: Keep the big hunker and you’ve got more to eat, and disproportionately more mercury contamination.
SAN LEANDRO, CA (KGO) — This week it will be 200 days since President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a massive federal program to create jobs by infusing cash into local communities. Some of that stimulus money is being used to clean up an environmental hazard in the Bay Area. >> Read the full story
Your kids may be working on their ABCs, but is their school working on its IPM?
That’s Integrated Pest Management, an increasingly requested – or required – method of fighting pests without using potentially harmful pesticides. (Or using minimal pesticides.)
For decades, schools liberally applied toxic pesticides on their grounds and in their classrooms to beat back bugs and rodents. Exterminators or the school janitor might have sprayed DDT, diazinon or chlordane. If things got bad enough, teachers would (and still could) take matters into their own hands with a can of Raid.
A new cancer study from India suggests that fluoride is a contributing factor to osteosarcoma, or bone cancer – but just how much fluoride intake causes the uncommon disease is not clear.
Fluoride in Americans’ tap water has spurred controversy since its introduction in 1945. Anti-fluoride activists say the risks are too high to add “medication” to the water, while government officials cite scientific studies that prove fewer cavities and no serious risk.
In Europe, most countries refuse to treat their water with fluoride with the exception of the United Kingdom. According to the British Medical Journal, fluoridation was introduced in 1963, and the Department of Health reports that rates of dental decay have been reduced 70 percent. But experts remain divided over epidemiological research that has suggested that water fluoridation might be linked to osteoporosis, dental fluorosis, irritable bowel syndrome, and other health problems.
How do cars pollute? In two main ways, through inefficient mileage (guzzling a gallon of gas every eight or 10 or 14 miles) and through tailpipe emissions.
There’s the pollution associated with manufacturing, also, but to keep it simple let’s stick with emissions and mileage. Obviously, both affect the air. Think of mileage as a measure of your car’s pollution volume over time – if a gallon of gas doesn’t take you very far, you have to burn a lot more gas — and emissions as the chemistry of that pollution; if the mix is particularly noxious, your car will be a bigger offender than one with better tailpipe controls.
So if you want to buy the cleanest car you can — in the price range you need — you’ll look at both factors. Fortunately, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has already done this work, assigning a “greenhouse gas” score to most models. Find it at the EPA’s Green Vehicles website.
The glass can be greener on the other side, if you recycle it.
Everyone knows that paper and plastic can be recycled. But sadly many people forget to recycle their glass. All glass containers or jars should be recycled.
Glass is 100% recyclable which means nothing will be wasted. When glass is recycled over and over again, there is no loss in quality and no waste or by-products. When glass manufacturers use recyclable materials to make new glass products, they are using less energy, cutting raw materials and CO2 emissions.
Just days before President Obama pledged to restore science to its rightful place in public policy, the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies released a report addressing environmental changes some political appointees have preferred to ignore: Sea levels are rising, and coastal communities, along with governments responsible for the species that depend on coastal environments, are going to have to take measures to deal with it.
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From Green Right Now Reports
