A new study of the compound used to fluoridate most city water systems in the U.S. has found that it contains significant levels of arsenic, raising concerns among fluoride opponents that this industrial-grade chemical raises health risks.
Tags: · arsenic, Drinking Water, EPA, fluoride, Fluoride Action Network, risk assessment, toxic
Summer brings so much fun, but it’s also the dreaded season of the mosquito, and by that we mean, the Culex mosquito, which transmits West Nile Virus to humans. The virus can be deadly, so squelching the mosquito population and finding an effective repellent is important. Here’s a look at the latest thinking and the ingredients endorsed as effective mosquito repellents.
Tags: · 8-diol, Catnip Oil, CDC, Dallas, DEET, EPA, Fort Worth, IR3535, mosquitoes, Oil of Lemon Eucalyptus, p-Methan-3, picaridin, preventing mosquitoes, repellents, West Nile Virus
The European Union votes to give honey bees a reprieve from a class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, long suspected of triggering massive bee deaths that threaten agriculture worldwide. The pesticides are still be allowed in the United States.
Tags: · bee deaths, CCD, EPA, European Union, Food/Drink, honey bees, neonicotinoids, pesticides, pollinators, USDA
Beekeepers and environmental groups sued the EPA this week for allowing pesticides that are causing an epidemic of bee deaths. The suit asks the agency to suspend the permits for certain pesticides, which have been shown to poison bees, which in turn threatens a wide array of crops dependent on bee pollination.
Tags: · Bees, clothianidin, Colony Collapse Disorder, EPA, pesticide dangers, pesticides, pollinators, thiamethoxam
When President Obama nominated MIT’s Ernest Moniz to be energy secretary earlier this month, he hailed the nuclear physicist as a “brilliant scientist.” But beyond his job in academia, Moniz has also spent the last decade serving on a range of boards and advisory councils for energy industry heavyweights like BP and an uranium enrichment company.
Tags: · domestic energy, energy agenda, Energy Secretary, EPA, Ernest Moniz, Fossil Fuels, Green Energy, industry ties, MIT, nuclear industry, oil industry
Stop the inhumane poisonings! Here are five ways to safely shoo and deter rodents, all of which are more eco-friendly than spreading poisons that endanger children, and kill pets and wildlife.
Tags: · d-Con, EPA, Havahart, humane treatment, mice, Owl scarecrows, pest poison, PestChaser, Pests, Rats, rodents, squirrels
It’s a little like a storyline from those nuclear-age science-fiction movies from the 1950s. An invisible, insidious gas invades your home, poised to undermine your family’s health.
But this is no fiction. It’s radon, a gas that exists naturally in the earth, but can concentrate in homes raising the cancer risk for those who are exposed long term.
Tags: · cancer, EPA, homes, house construction, lung cancer, Radioactive, radon, uranium, venting
The EPA apparently caved to gas industry pressure by dropping a case involving a gas-tainted water well in Weatherford, Texas, according to an AP investigation published today.
The report stems from an EPA finding in 2010 that gas driller Range Resources
Tags: · EPA, natural gas, Range Resources, Weatherford
New gasoline standards for cars and light trucks set by the US Department of Transportation and the US EPA won final approval on Tuesday after several months of public review and hearings.
The new mileage standards will require that American cars get an average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. The EPA touted the change as a near doubling of fuel efficiency for cars, and predicted the effect on consumers would be like lowering the price of gasoline by $1 a gallon. Overall, the measure will save consumers more than $1.7 trillion at the gas pump and reduce U.S. oil consumption by 12 billion barrels, according to the EPA.
Tags: · 54.5 miles per gallon, Cars, Climate Change, DOT, EPA, green transportation, new mileage standards, Obama Administration, oil dependence, Trucks
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to impose a limit on greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants, a strict new regulation that could prevent conventional coal-fired power plants from being built. In new rules to be announc…
Tags: · EPA, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, greenrightnow.com, Michael Brune, power plants
Ah, spring. You can smell it on the air — that bracing ammonia smell wafting off your neighbor’s lawn; the acrid odors at the local home store, where the first six aisles have been packed with heaping bags of the season’s poisons.
Hydramethylnon, glyphosate, dicambra, atrazine and 2,4-D.
There’s a little something to wipe out every potential lawn and garden interloper, but the most popular consumer weapons in the annual war on nature are the “weed and feeds.” These fertilizers-herbicide combos were conceived of more than 50 years ago in the US to enrich turf grass, while simultaneously stamping out invading weeds.
Tags: · 2, 4-D, atrazine, cancer and lawn chemicals, dangers of pesticides, dogs and weed and feed, Endocrine Disruptors, EPA, Farmers, frogs and atrazine, health effects of atrazine and 2, herbicides, Hodgkin's lymphoma, kids and weed and feed, lawn chemicals, Lawns, lymphoma, Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, pesticides, weed and feed
Just in time for weed-and-feed season, the Natural Resources Defense Council has filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failing to stop the use of the weed killed known as 2,4-D.
This neurotoxic chemical, infamous as a key ingredient in Agent Orange, is still allowed in products used to treat lawns, golf courses and in commercial operations.
Tags: · 2, 4-D, cancer, EPA, herbicides, lawsuit over 2, lymphoma, NRDC, pesticides, Toxic chemicals
Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift