From Green Right Now Reports
An initiative to put an end to international trophy hunting and commercial trade in polar bear parts was defeated in a vote at the United Nations’ Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) in Doha, Qatar. The same group also voted down a proposal to ban the export of Atlantic [...]
The U.S. EPA announced Wednesday that it is taking several steps to increase the safety of flea and tick treatments for pets, including requiring better labeling and instructions to prevent misuse. The agency also promises to subject new and existing products to stricter testing.
[caption id="attachment_9974" align="alignleft" width="138" caption="The EPA found that small dogs are more likely to have an adverse reaction to spot-on flea treatments."][/caption]
The move comes after hundreds of reports of pets falling ill, or even dying, nationwide after being treated with flea and tick treatments available on the consumer market. The agency reported that it logged more than 44,000 reports of bad reactions to topical flea and tick products in 2008, which was up considerably from the 28,000+ reported in 2007. The reactions included skin irritations, gastrointestinal problems that included vomiting and diarrhea and nervous system effects — trembling, seizures, depression.
As passionate as his father was about civil rights, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is equally so about the environment.
In a lecture in Fort Worth on Wednesday, the 56-year-old son of the late Senator, advocated for moving the nation to green energy, which he doesn’t see as encompassing nuclear power.
Coal is not the only power-producing industry that needs scrubbing, said the longtime environmentalist, nuclear energy is simply not safe. “Nuclear energy is the most catastrophic form of energy. No bank will finance it…[and] no insurance company will insure it,” he said.
“It’s not just a bunch of hippies saying it’s unsafe. There are spills all the time into the Hudson,” says Kennedy, who serves as chief prosecuting attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper, whose mission is the restoration of that waterway. Three Mile Island was not the last accident despite what nuclear advocates say.
He made it clear that lobbyists for fossil fuel and polluting energy industries are powerful and dangerous. The nuclear industry, for example, managed to find a way to get a Congressional exemption that leaves them free from damage. “All homeowners’ policies in the U.S. exclude radiation from the nuclear industry,” he said.
Kennedy believes greed has taken over the utility companies as well. “Utility companies make money by selling more energy – even if the energy is green. We need to change the rules,” he says. “Don’t reward bad behavior.”
When the Copenhagen Climate Conference ended in mid-December, it was widely decried by climate activists as embarrassingly inconclusive, at best, and a failure at worst (you can’t get much worse than that).
And yet, there were plenty of voices, including that of President Obama, urging everyone to hold tight and pointing out that alliances had been formed and the world’s major polluters had stepped up, however tentatively. They had issued hard numbers, a percentages by which they would try to rollback greenhouse gas emissions.
(This article was first posted on Jan. 25, 2010, by the Natural Resources Defense Council on its Simple Steps website. It is a Q & A with NRDC Senior Attorney Daniel Rosenberg exploring why the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition, of which the NRDC is a member, wants tighter controls on toxic substances.)
By Paul McRandle
Q: Quickly, what is TSCA and why does it need to be reformed?
Daniel Rosenberg: TSCA is an environmental law first enacted in 1976 and never updated since, that was intended to regulate the safety of industrial chemicals—that is most chemicals that find their way into the stream of commerce. It is generally regarded to be the greatest failure of all the major environmental laws passed in the early 1970s. This is because there were 62,000 chemicals in use when it was enacted and all of those chemicals were grandfathered in, meaning they didn’t have to be tested or required to meet a safety standard. On top of that, the law makes it extremely difficult for EPA to take action even when they know a chemical is unsafe, like asbestos. The way the law is written, the burden is on the agency to prove a chemical is unsafe rather than the companies who make chemicals having to prove they are safe.
Some of the nation’s best-known and critically acclaimed celebrities, Leonardo DiCaprio, Edward Norton, Jason Bateman, Felicity Huffman and Forest Whitaker, along with rising stars Chace Crawford, Emmy Rossum and Justin Long, are leading a campaign to help citizens sound the call for clean energy in Washington.
Depending on where you live, it can be a relatively painless process to switch to a greener power company, or virtually impossible.
New York City residents can switch, if they choose, and now a new environmental collaboration is making the process easier than ever.
Consumers can follow the guidance of a new website, launched Monday and created by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Alliance for Clean Energy in New York.
One of my pet complaints is finally being addressed, at least partly. Living here in the Barnett Shale region of Texas, where drilling for natural gas is making Swiss cheese of the ground beneath, say, my house, I’ve been sensitive to these reports coming out that link fracturing chemicals to groundwater contamination.
To be fair, natural gas advocates point out that the crevices they’re tapping are typically not at the same level as groundwater. Still, that means they’re either drilling through potential groundwater territory, or above it (think: gravity).
Fleas happen. So do ticks. With the trees in full leaf and the back of the lot thick with weeds, I know the hounds will soon be targets. Typically, I just shave them (the dogs not the parasites), wash them with something obnoxiously fragrant and hope for the best.
I gave up chemical dog collars awhile back, about 1992. (Reasons in a moment.) But knowing that the dogs are miserable with fleas (not to mention how miserable we’d be sharing their fleas) and that they can get Lyme disease if they pick up a tick, I’m well aware this isn’t a perfect solution. I have fed them garlic powder, a home remedy, but with mixed success.
Seeking to show that proposed new U.S. coal plants would exact a high environmental toll even beyond their carbon air pollution, the Natural Resources Defense Council issued a list today of the states that would bear the greatest burden from coal waste.
Texas, with eight proposed plants, topped the NRDC’s “Filthy 15″ list. It was followed by South Dakota, Florida, Nevada and Montana, Illinois, South Carolina, Ohio, Wyoming, Michigan, Kentucky, Missouri , Wisconsin, Georgia and West Virginia.
Those states have 54 proposed coal plants awaiting permitting. Across the nation, there are 80 proposed plants that would dump an estimated 18 million tons of dangerous coal combustion waste annually into various dump sites, largely unmonitored by the federal government.
Here is the Natural Resources Defense Council’s list of the 15 states that would be the biggest polluters — the “Filthy 15” — based on their total of 54 planned coal plants that create nearly 14 million tons of dangerous waste (state; number of proposed plants; estimated coal ash waste in tons):
On March 3, Los Angelinos will vote on a solar energy measure that has created controversy in some quarters, and whose progress other U.S. cities may want to watch.
Measure B, also known as the Green Energy and Good Jobs for Los Angeles Act,calls for a major increase in the amount of solar power used by the City of Los Angeles (400 megawatts to be created by 2014; enough to power about 240,000 homes). It would create a new training academy for workers; offer tax incentives to L.A. manufacturers who move into solar power technology and installation; and place solar installation, ownership and maintenance in the hands of the municipally owned Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). Ultimately, Measure B would put up hundreds of acres of solar voltaics, on rooftops and land.
Involving two basic camps – those who oppose Measure B but not necessarily solar energy; and those who consider Measure B a strong starting point – the dust-up has swirled with anti-B accusations of back-room deal making, local-politics playing, lack of proper public vetting, union steamrolling – and worse.
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New York City residents can switch, if they choose, and now a new environmental collaboration is making the process easier than ever.