NewsTrust - Pollution - Most Recent Stories: News (Independent)

The Pacific Ocean Is Dying

Fri, 18 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

nationofchange.org - May. 18 (Special Report) - Just prior to the Supermoon of March 18th, 2011, the world witnessed a natural and manmade disaster of epic proportions. What transpired off the coast of Honshu Island, Japan on March 11 has forever altered the planet and irremediably affected the global environment.

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Frankenfoods: Why Is the Gates Foundation Helping Monsanto Push Genetically Modified Food?

Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Paige Aarhus - May. 11 (Special Report) - serious concerns about viability, corporate dependency and health effects linger — even while leading research firms and NGOs do their best to smooth them over. Monsanto-patented seeds are usually costly, which has led to numerous accusations of exploitation and contemporary colonialism. But how long will these particular strains of seeds last? What are the guarantees? Critics fear dependence on corporate fertilizers and pesticides, the emergence of super-weeds and pests that can no longer repel GM varieties, and terminator seeds that only last for one planting season.

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HANDS OFF APPALACHIA!: Occupy MTR Investor USB

Fri, 04 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Writing Corner - By Beth Wellington - May. 04 (Special Report) - May Day, of course, originally commemorated Chicago's 1886 the Haymarket Massacre, when, during a general strike for the eight hour workday, an unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they dispersed a public meeting, and police fired on workers, killing several demonstrators and resulting in the deaths of several police officers, largely from friendly fire. Mayday, of course, is also "mayday" used as a distress signal for aviators because it approximates the French term "m'aider", meaning "come help me!"

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Nuclear Safety Advocates Accuse Industry And Regulators Of Foot-Dragging On Basic Safety Measure

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Tom Zeller Jr. - Apr. 30 (News Report) - "It always comes down to public safety versus the cost to industry of implementing something." So it has been, Lampert argues, with one seemingly straightforward emergency feature: Requiring a filtered vent in the concrete containment buildings surrounding nuclear reactors like the one at Pilgrim.

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Eyeless Shrimp and Fish With Tumors: The Horrific Consequences of BP's Spill

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Lisa Kaas Boyle - Apr. 19 (Special Report) - Disturbingly, the allowable levels set by the government for the toxins in our seafood are based on health impacts for a 176 pound adult eating less than 2 medium shrimp a day. The testing is for 1 chemical out of a crude oil mixture containing thousands of chemicals. No synergistic effects are considered. This in no way protects children, fetuses, people who weigh less than 176 pounds or anyone who eats seafood on a daily basis like the folks here on the Gulf Coast.

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Gulf of Mexico Dolphins Sick, Dying After BP Oil Spill

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - Apr. 03 (News Report) - Bottlenose dolphins in Barataria Bay, Louisiana now are showing signs of severe ill health after coming in contact with oily waters from the BP oil spill nearly two years ago, warn NOAA marine mammal biologists and their local, state and federal research partners in a study released this week.

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Label It Yourself Campaign: Citizen Action to Label GMOs

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

nationofchange.org - Mar. 29 (News Report) - Citizens from across the country, concerned by the increasing scientific data indicating serious economic, environmental and public health risks associated with GMOs (genetically modified organisms), have taken matters into their own hands, labeling foods that may contain GMOs in a nationwide campaign to “Label It Yourself” (#LIY).

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Polluters Dump 226 Million Pounds of Toxins into U.S. Rivers

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

care2.com - By Jennifer Mueller - Mar. 24 (Investigative Report) - Industrial polluters dumped 226 million pounds of toxic chemicals in to U.S. waterways in 2010, according to a new report by Environment America. The group analyzed government data on industrial facilities to reveal total discharges by state and which U.S. rivers bear the heaviest toxic chemical burden.

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5 Things Corporations Are Trying to Hide From You

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By David Sirota - Mar. 15 (Special Report) - as Businessweek recently noted, regulations are hardly job killers. Instead, the magazine points out, they typically “wind up creating about as many jobs as they kill.” In the process, they also mitigate major social problems, as Coca-Cola and Pepsi just proved.

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Fracking Democracy: Why Pennsylvania's Act 13 May Be the Nation's Worst Corporate Giveaway

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Steven Rosenfeld - Mar. 12 (Special Report) - Pennsylvania, where the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were signed and where the U.S. coal, oil and nuclear industries began, has adopted what may be the most anti-democratic, anti-environmental law in the country, giving gas companies the right to drill anywhere, overturn local zoning laws, seize private property and muzzle physicians from disclosing specific health impacts from drilling fluids on patients.

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Japan Earthquake Anniversary: U.S. Slow To Update Nuclear Safety Requirements Following Disaster, Experts Say

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Chris Kirkham - Mar. 08 (Special Report) - "There is no question that the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi site ... will be regarded as a seminal event in the history of nuclear power," Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman Gregory Jaczko said in a speech last May. "We have the responsibility t

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Anti-Nuclear Groups in Georgia Seek To Block First New Nuclear Plants in U.S. in Decades

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Mar. 06 (News Report) - On this Super Tuesday in Georgia, one issue where the Republican candidates fully agree with President Obama is nuclear power. The nation’s first reactors since 1978 recently won federal approval. Atlanta-based Southern Company is attempting to build two new reactors at the Vogtle plant in eastern Georgia. We speak with Stephen Smith of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, one of nine groups seeking to block the project, who notes that nuclear power plants relies on federal loan guarantees because Wall Street is not interested in investing. “You would think that the conservative party would be conservatively approaching use of both rate payer money and tax payer money and that they would want transparency and openness,” Smith says. “Yet we have heard virtually nothing from anyone in the Republican Party.” [Rush transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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BP to Pay $7.8B to Settle Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Lawsuit. Is it a Bad Deal For Gulf Residents?

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Mar. 05 (News Analysis) - Investigative journalists Greg Palast and Antonia Juhasz examine who wins and who loses in BP’s settlement. "[BP is] basically being told, if you’re like a bank robber, you put the money back in the vault, and everything’s forgiven," says Palast, who also investigated the Exxon Valdez settlement. Meanwhile, state and federal governments are still pursuing separate civil claims against BP for environmental damage. "That’s when we’re going to hopefully uncover those 72 million pages of investigation that will include wrongdoing not just by BP, not just by Transocean, not just by Halliburton, but every major oil company involved the offshore—and, very likely, at least based on my research, wrongdoing by the Obama administration," says Juhasz

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Unprecedented Ocean Acidification Underway

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Julia Whitty - Mar. 02 (Special Report) - A new and alarming paper in the prestigious journal Science reports today that the world's oceans may be acidifying faster now than at any time during the four major extinctions of the last 300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon sent global temperatures soaring as much as 6 degrees C (10.8 degrees F).

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Federal Rules to Disclose Fracking Chemicals Could Come With Exceptions

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

nationofchange.org - By Lena Groeger - Feb. 17 (News Report) - Though the BLM's proposed rules are more stringent than most state laws, environmental and health advocates say drillers could circumvent some of the requirements. For instance, the rules would only apply to drilling on federal lands. Also, companies could request that certain chemicals be exempted from disclosure if they are deemed a "trade secret." The trade secret exemptions "could potentially make the rules meaningless if applied broadly,"

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Keystone Pipeline Facts

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Robert Redford - Feb. 10 (News Analysis) - 'Joe Nocera's op-ed in the New York Times yesterday deserves a response and a reiteration of the facts surrounding the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. ...Let's put the rhetoric aside, and simply focus on the facts. Nocera wants us to believe that approving this pipeline is a matter of national security. ... The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would not make the United States of America safer. Why? It would not make us safer, because the majority of the processed oil was already scheduled for export to foreign countries. That's right, this Keystone XL pipeline's Canadian tar sands oil would have

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Panel: Start now to replace Nevada nuke site

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

tri-cityherald.com - By Matthew Daly - Jan. 28 (News Report) - The Union of Concerned Scientists said construction of an interim storage facility for nuclear waste poses a stiff political challenge and could distract from the more important goal of finding a permanent repository site.

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Reef Fish at Risk as Carbon Dioxide Levels Build

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - Jan. 21 (Special Report) - Rising carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions threaten the survival of some fish species by sending their central nervous systems haywire.' Australian Associated Press

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Oil Slick From Massive Spill in Nigeria Threatens Coastline, May Be Largest Spill in a Decade

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 27 (News Report) - Communities along Nigeria’s Niger Delta have been put on alert following a major oil spill from the oil giant, Shell. The massive oil slick is making its way to the Nigerian coast, threatening local wildlife and massive pollution along the shore. Much of the available information about the spill comes from the company responsible for it, Royal Dutch Shell, which says less than 40,000 barrels have leaked so far. But Nigeria’s National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency says the spill could be three times as large. It comes just four months after the United Nations said it would take 30 years and around $1 billion for a small section of the delta to recover from environmental damage caused by Shell and other companies.

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U.S. Publicly Shifts Climate Stance in Face of Widespread Criticism -- Then Quietly Backtracks

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 09 (News Report) - Talks at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Durban have entered their last official day, with focus now on a European Union-sponsored road map calling for a new climate treaty to be negotiated by 2015. The treaty would impose binding cuts on the world's biggest emitters of the heat-trapping gases, but would not likely go into effect until 2020. After being publicly heckled by a U.S. college student on Thursday and facing widespread accusations of obstructing the Durban talks, U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said the Obama administration supports the E.U. road map. The U.S. State Department later backtracked on Stern's comments by taking the unusual step of issuing a clarification to its position, saying it does not yet support a legally binding deal to cut emissions. When Amy Goodman then tried to question Stern and fellow lead U.S. negotiator Jonathan Pershing about the apparent retraction, they refused to answer. [includes rush transcript]

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Canadian Activists Barred From Durban Summit for Protesting Environment Minister

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 07 (News Report) - Soon after Kent began speaking, six members of the Canadian Youth Delegation stood up and turned their backs on the minister. They were taken out of the room and later stripped of their credentials to the climate change conference. "Today, six of us stood up and turned our backs on the government of Canada, in the same way the government of Canada has turned its back on us," says activist Karen Rooney. "We are calling on the government of Canada to start putting the interests of people over the interests of polluters."

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Indigenous Activists From Canada Protest Tar Sands Oil at Durban Climate Change Summit

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 06 (News Report) - This morning in Durban, South Africa, a group of youth and indigenous activists from Canada gave delegates to the U.N. climate talks mock gift bags containing samples of fake tar sands along with tourism brochures for Canada and Canadian flags. Kandi Mossett, one of the activists participating in the action, says Canada’s reliance on tar sands oil “is the largest catastrophic project that I am aware of on earth right now.” Mossett, who is the Native Energy and Climate Campaign Organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network, notes that the tar sands extraction process is energy and water-intensive, emits immense amounts of pollution into the air, and destroys the landscape. “To even get to the tar sands they have to remove boreal forests — old growth forests — and they call it ‘overburden.’ They just scrape it off and get rid of that. And then they dig down and move so many tons of earth,” Mossett says. “Then they squeeze out the last little 10 percent of oil that’s actually in the sand. And then they have to use chemicals to make it liquid enough to be able to put it through the pipelines — it’s much more toxic than any other kind of, you know, sweet crude oil.”

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Thousands March at U.N. Climate Summit in Durban to Demand Climate Justice

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Dec. 05 (News Report) - Key issues at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP17, remain unresolved, including the future of the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty with enforceable provisions designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Delegates are also debating how to form a Green Climate Fund to support developing nations most affected by climate change.

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White House Could Cast Decisive Vote to Permit 20,000 Fracking Wells in Delaware River Basin

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Nov. 11 (News Report) - This week the Delaware River Basin Commission released draft regulations to allow for the natural gas drilling technique hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, in the river's watershed, which provides water to 15.6 million people in New York City, Philadelphia and New Jersey. The proposed plan would allow for some 20,000 gas wells to be developed in the watershed. A vote on the regulations is set for Nov. 21 and could prompt a battle between activists and the White House, which holds a seat on the commission and may cast the deciding vote. We speak with Josh Fox, whose documentary about fracking, "Gasland," was nominated for an Academy Award, and play an excerpt of his new video about the possible impacts natural gas fracking could have in the Delaware River Basin. [includes rush transcript]

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Debate on Fracking: Was Syracuse Right to Ban the Controversial Natural Gas Drilling Process?

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Nov. 04 (News Analysis) - Syracuse... recently became the third city in New York state to ban the natural gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking. The Syracuse Common Council voted unanimously last week to ban fracking within city limits. They also voted to limit where wastewater from the fracking process can be stored. Fracking is controversial because it injects millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals deep into the earth in order to break up shale rock and release natural gas. Many feel this extraction process raises a myriad of human health and environmental issues.

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