It seems that genetically modified (GM) crops consistently fail to deliver, no matter what perspective you examine them from. DuPont called GM drought resistance the next "big thing," and last year, Monsanto began hyping drought-resistant GM corn. Monsanto may feel it's entitled to a little crowing after reporting yield increases between 6.7 and 13.4 percent over conventionally-grown corn varieties in drought conditions. But there's one, little problem: Plain, old organic agriculture does a far superior job.
BP is warning Congress that if lawmakers pass legislation that bars the company from getting new offshore drilling permits, it may not have the money to pay for all the damages caused by its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The company says a ban would also imperil the ambitious Gulf Coast restoration efforts that officials want the company to voluntarily support.
BP executives insist that they have not backed away from their commitment to the White House to set aside $20 billion in an escrow fund over the next four years to pay damage claims and government penalties stemming from the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. The explosion killed 11 workers and spewed millions of barrels of oil into the gulf.
On the same note, how do you expect me to stop beating my spouse if you won't let me keep beating my spouse?
A US man may face 16 years in prison for posting a video of his arrest on Youtube.
AlJazeera
Aug 28
...Graber, a sergeant with the Maryland Air National Guard, is now facing 16 years in prison, not for dangerous driving, but for a Youtube video he posted after receiving a speeding ticket.
The video, filmed with a camera mounted on Graber's motorcycle helmet designed to record biking stunts rather than police abuse, shows a plain clothes officer jumping out of an unmarked car and pointing a pistol at the motorcyclist.
After he posted the video on Youtube, police raided Graber's home, seized computers and put him in jail.
Or maybe not. Many people who care about environmentalism, get caught up a great deal in thinking about how they consume, and changing their consumer habits.
Nearly all scientists agree that sewage sludge can be beneficial if it is uncontaminated, as it is a rich source of phosphorus and nitrogen. It has two components -- bacteria naturally present in organic matter, which can be somewhat removed depending on how the sludge is processed; and heavy metals and chemicals such as any of the 11 flame retardants, 72 pharmaceuticals, 28 metals, 25 steroids and hormones, and others that EPA tested for in its 2009 national sludge survey. It can also contain chemicals that no one is looking for, any one of the 80,000 that are made in the United States.
Hydroelectric power, though renewable, is not necessarily 'green'. Destruction and isolation of wildlife habitat is the most obvious side effect of these dams. The initial flooding can also create large quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, due to the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter in the bed of a new reservoir.
In the Amazon, large dams are particularly damaging due to the high concentration of endemic species and plant matter, as well as the presence of indigenous tribes. Also, while the dam is touted as providing enough electricity to power 23 million homes, there is speculation that some of the energy will go into expansion of mining operations in the Amazon.
Brazil's government has given the formal go-ahead for the building on a tributary of the Amazon of the world's third biggest hydroelectric dam.
After several failed legal challenges, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed the contract for the Belo Monte dam with the Norte Energia consortium.
Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva attempted to reassure those in opposition:
At the contract signing ceremony in Brasilia on Thursday, President Lula said he himself had criticised the dam before he learnt more about it.
"You cannot imagine how many times I spoke against Belo Monte without even knowing what it was about, and it is precisely during my government that Belo Monte is being unveiled," he said.
"I think this is a victory for Brazil's energy sector.
"We will persuade them that we took seriously into account the environmental and social issues," he added.
We will see if those concerns were truly taken into consideration. Indigenous leaders remain unconvinced:
"The government has signed a death warrant for the Xingu river and condemned thousands of residents to expulsion," local Indian leaders said on Thursday.
RICHMOND, Vt.- The Bureau of Land Management is recommending targeted cave closures and other measures to stem the spread of a bat-killing disease, after a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity earlier this year sought closure of all bat caves on federal lands in the lower 48 states. The Center applauded the BLM's new national policy to deal with the lethal malady, known as white-nose syndrome, but said it doesn't go far enough to protect bats from the fast-spreading disease, which scientists believe may drive several bat species to extinction within a few years.
"Western land managers are finally waking up to the overwhelming threat of white-nose syndrome to bats, but this devastating disease simply will not allow the luxury of half measures," said Mollie Matteson, conservation advocate with the Center. "If the BLM is serious about protecting bats, then it needs to restrict access in all caves with bats."
The BLM's action comes a month after the U.S. Forest Service ordered the closure of all caves on national forests and grasslands in Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, and most of Wyoming and South Dakota. The Forest Service acted after the fungus associated with white-nose syndrome was found on a bat in western Oklahoma this spring. The BLM has jurisdiction over 253 million acres of federal land, almost all of it in the West, and manages thousands of caves and mines, many of which are used by bats for hibernation and roosting.
CARLSBAD - The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad is being eyed as a potential site for the disposal of surplus plutonium by the Department of Energy.
The material represents approximately 13 metric tons (MT) of surplus plutonium, including about 7 MT from retired nuclear weapons and 6 MT of non-pit plutonium. A "pit" is the plutonium core of a nuclear weapon, while "non-pit" plutonium comprises plutonium oxides or metals that existed when the Cold War ended.
The material under consideration for potential disposal at the WIPP facility is 6 MT of surplus non-pit plutonium to be moved from the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina. It could be disposed of as transuranic (TRU) waste at WIPP in the same way other TRU waste is disposed of currently.
They're talking 7-10 years from now. I suspected this kind of thing was likely to happen, and more would not surprise me.
Faced with a crisis more than a decade ago in which thousands of people were sickened from salmonella in infected eggs, farmers in Britain began vaccinating their hens against the bacteria. That simple but decisive step virtually wiped out the health threat.
But when American regulators created new egg safety rules that went into effect last month, they declared that there was not enough evidence to conclude that vaccinating hens against salmonella would prevent people from getting sick. The Food and Drug Administration decided not to mandate vaccination of hens - a precaution that would cost less than a penny per a dozen eggs.
Now, consumers have been shaken by one of the largest egg recalls ever, involving nearly 550 million eggs from two Iowa producers, after a nationwide outbreak of thousands of cases of salmonella was traced to eggs contaminated with the bacteria.
Interesting article. I always thought of salmonella contamination as an externality; never occurred to me that a hen could be infected and pass it to the egg.
