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Archive for June, 2015
Cocktail of common chemicals triggers cancer
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 23rd, 2015
ScienceDaily: A global taskforce of 174 scientists from leading research centres across 28 countries studied the link between mixtures of commonly encountered chemicals and the development of cancer. The study selected 85 chemicals not considered carcinogenic to humans and found 50 supported key cancer-related mechanisms at exposures found in the environment today. Longstanding concerns about the combined and additive effects of everyday chemicals prompted the organisation Getting To Know Cancer led by Lowe Leroy...
United Kingdom: Hundreds protest against proposed fracking site in Lancashire
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 23rd, 2015
Guardian: Hundreds of people protested against a proposed fracking site in Lancashire on Tuesday, as the county council considered whether to approve the project.
Over 450 people massed outside the county hall in Preston while Lancashire County Council listened to representations for and against Cuadrilla’s bid to frack at Preston New Road in Little Plumpton, between Preston and Blackpool.
Last week the council’s planning officers advised members to approve Cuadrilla’s bid to start fracking at the site,...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on United Kingdom: Hundreds protest against proposed fracking site in LancashireCanada’s tar sands aren’t just oil fields. They’re sacred lands for my people
Posted by Guardian: Eriel Tchekwie Deranger on June 23rd, 2015
Guardian: For years, concerned members of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) in Canada, like myself, have voiced concerns about the impacts caused by oil sand exploitation. The vast majority of our community resides downstream from large scale oil sands surface mining and has seen first hand the complex impacts this industry has.
Now, over 100 renowned scientists and academics have echoed our concerns about oil sands in a call for a moratorium on expansion, which is being taken seriously by the...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Canada’s tar sands aren’t just oil fields. They’re sacred lands for my peopleRolling Stone: ‘What’s Killing the Babies of Vernal, Utah?’
Posted by EcoWatch: None Given on June 23rd, 2015
EcoWatch: In January, the Los Angeles Times ran a story on the fracking boomtown of Vernal, Utah. It described how a midwife named Donna Young was attacked and demonized for drawing attention to an increase in stillbirths in the town and its resistance to the idea that the industry that provides half its annual budget could be responsible. Now Rolling Stone Magazine has done a deeper dive into Vernal’s story, as well as the political story behind its story, exploring how formerly rural areas came to be fracking...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Rolling Stone: ‘What’s Killing the Babies of Vernal, Utah?’Climate change health risk is a medical emergency, experts warn
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 23rd, 2015
Reuters: The threat to human health from climate change is so great that it could undermine the last 50 years of gains in development and global health, experts warned on Tuesday. Extreme weather events such as floods and heat waves bring rising risks of infectious diseases, poor nutrition and stress, the specialists said, while polluted cities where people work long hours and have no time or space to walk, cycle or relax are bad for the heart as well as respiratory and mental health. Almost 200 countries...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate change health risk is a medical emergency, experts warnMajor insurer explores risks using insurance to reduce climate shocks global food supplies
Posted by ClimateWire: Evan Lehmann on June 23rd, 2015
ClimateWire: A stress test prepared by Lloyd's of London concluded that a chain reaction of floods, drought and related diseases could cripple the world's food supply, leading to a crisis that could spark further unrest, including the possibility of rioting in major cities, a terrorist attack in the United States and even a Russian invasion. Lloyd's, a major global insurer, outlined the scenario in a report last week. It is seen as an unlikely but possible scenario that could cut across the insurance industry's...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Major insurer explores risks using insurance to reduce climate shocks global food suppliesUnnatural Disaster: How Warming Helped Cause India Catastrophic Flood
Posted by Yale Environment 360: Daniel Grossman on June 23rd, 2015
Yale Environment 360: Two years ago this month, a flood devastated the Himalayan village of Kedarnath, India, the destination of half a million Hindu pilgrims annually. The town sits 11,500 feet up in a tight valley. Sharp, snowy peaks tower on three sides and a stone temple sits at one end. The flood — which occurred on June 17, 2013 — was India’s worst disaster in a decade. Several thousand people drowned. The deluge tore apart dozens of bridges, swept away miles of paved roads, and carried off herds of livestock. ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Unnatural Disaster: How Warming Helped Cause India Catastrophic FloodCanada Files Charges 2013 Lac-Megantic Oil Train Crash
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 23rd, 2015
Reuters: The Canadian government on Monday charged the Montreal Maine & Atlantic Canada Railway Ltd, its affiliate and eight people with violating federal railway safety and environmental laws in connection with a 2013 oil train crash that killed 47 people and flattened the heart of the Quebec village of Lac-Megantic.
Robert Grindrod, the chief executive of now-bankrupt Montreal Maine & Atlantic Canada Railway, was among those charged with contravening the federal Railway Safety Act.
Canada's transport...
Top doctors’ prescription for feverish planet: Cut out coal
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 23rd, 2015
Associated Press: Some top international doctors and public health experts have issued an urgent prescription for a feverish planet Earth: Get off coal as soon as possible.
Substituting cleaner energy worldwide for coal will reduce air pollution and give Earth a better chance at avoiding dangerous climate change, recommended a global health commission organized by the prestigious British medical journal Lancet. The panel said hundreds of thousands of lives each year are at stake and global warming "threatens to...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Top doctors’ prescription for feverish planet: Cut out coalThirty Meter Telescope construction resume Hawaii this week
Posted by Pacific Business: None Given on June 23rd, 2015
Pacific Business: Construction on the Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawaii will resume Wednesday, nearly three months after work on the $1.4 billion project was halted when protesters objected to another observatory being built atop the Big Island’s Mauna Kea volcano, officials with the multinational consortium developing the project said.
Gov. David Ige last month said he supported the Thirty Meter Telescope project and said the state would enforce the TMT Observatory Corp.’s right to proceed with construction on...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Thirty Meter Telescope construction resume Hawaii this week