On May 27th, more than a month into the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, Barack Obama strode to the podium in the East Room of the White House. For weeks, the administration had been insisting that BP alone was to blame for the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf – and the ongoing failure to stop the massive leak. “They have the technical expertise to plug the hole,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs had said only six days earlier. “It is their responsibility.” The president, Gibbs added, lacked the authority to play anything more than a supervisory role – a curious line of argument from an administration that has reserved the right to assassinate American citizens abroad and has nationalized much of the auto industry. “If BP is not accomplishing the task, can you just federalize it?” a reporter asked. “No,” Gibbs replied.

Now, however, the president was suddenly standing up to take command of the cleanup effort.

Why Factory Farms May Finally Be Held Responsible for Their Polluting Waste

In a legal settlement that could affect the entire U.S. meat industry, the Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to identify and investigate thousands of factory farms that have been avoiding government regulation for water pollution with animal waste.

Coincidence? Another paper links Obama and violence

The “mistakes” are adding up: On May 15 of last year, the Roswell Beacon in Georgia ran a cover photo showing President Barack Obama in a gun’s crosshairs. Early this month, Fox ran a photo of a rifle situated as if taking aim at Obama, followed two weeks ago by an odd item at the Washington Times Web site: the conservative publication used a photo of Obama’s daughters to illustrate a story about Chicago schoolchildren who’ve been murdered.
Minnesota Independent

Government Taps Bailout Contractors With Conflicts of Interest

As the Wall Street bailout nears its first anniversary, the controversy over giving public money to private banks has become public knowledge. But an equally risky aspect of the financial rescue has flown largely under the radar: the government’s reliance on private contractors – many with potentially significant conflicts of interest – to help revive the stalled economy.

The Treasury Department knows that the law firms and investment managers hired to aid its salvage effort could be influenced by their ties to bailed-out banks; in fact, the department released a rule in January aiming to mitigate the problem.
Washington Independent

Hong Kong protest over Tiananmen

Thousands have marched in Hong Kong to mark the forthcoming 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen killings, in one of the few such events on Chinese soil.

Hundreds, possibly thousands, of people were killed in China’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests.

There has been no official inquiry so the exact death toll remains unclear.
BBC

Pakistan city centre ‘destroyed’

The scale of the war damage to the main city in the Swat valley has become clear, as fears are expressed about the humanitarian situation in the region.

Taliban rebels were driven out of Mingora on Saturday by Pakistan government troops.

The defence secretary says operations in the whole Swat valley region should end in the next few days, though military chiefs are more cautious.
BBC

Sexualized Violence in a Lady Gaga Video

In the documentary Dreamworlds 3: Desire, Sex, and Power in Music Video, Sut Jhally investigates how images of sex and violence, and sexualized violence against women, are used in music videos, and how music videos help shape ideas of what is sexy.
Sociological Images

Documentary on Intensive Pig Farming Faces Legal Threat

A documentary about intensive pig farming due to be screened at the Guardian Hay festival on Sunday is facing a legal threat from one of the companies it investigates. Pig Business criticises the practices of the world’s largest pork processor, Smithfield Foods, claiming it is responsible for environmental pollution and health problems among residents near its factories.

The film was due to be broadcast on Channel 4 in February but was cancelled because of legal fears. A planned screening at the Frontline Club in London earlier this year was also called off.
Common Dreams

Ice shelf about to break away from Antarctica

‘New rifts’ appeared this week along Wilkins; shelf holds back ice on land

MSNBC

Why global warming doesn’t pose a problem

…Because God doesn’t want it to. That’s what Illinois Rep. John Shimkus says:

MN Publius

US: Warming Gases Are Health Threat

Having received White House backing, the Environmental Protection Agency declared Friday that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are a significant threat to human health and thus will be listed as pollutants under the Clean Air Act – a policy the Bush administration rejected.

truthout

Science Chief Discusses Climate Strategy

The Obama administration might agree to auction only a portion of the emissions allowances granted at first under a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gas pollution, White House science adviser John P. Holdren said yesterday, a move that would please electric utilities and manufacturers but could anger environmentalists.

Washington Post

Report: Wind could supply enough power to meet US electricity needs

Wind turbines off US coastlines could potentially supply more than enough electricity to meet the country’s current electricity demand, the US interior department reported today.

Simply harnessing the wind in relatively shallow waters – the most accessible and technically feasible sites for offshore turbines – could produce at least 20% of the power demand for most coastal states, interior secretary Ken Salazar said, unveiling a report by the department’s minerals management service that details the potential for oil, gas and renewable development on the Outer Continental Shelf.

Guardian

Colombia’s desert war

I recently received a disturbing email from southern Colombia warning that the fragile Amazonian soil could “soon be turned to desert”. They were the words of a Catholic priest, so I rang a church worker whose parish lies deep in the Amazonian state of Caquetá. Military planes targeting coca farms, funded by the US, had been spraying mists of herbicides over food crops, grazing animals and even areas where children were playing, she said: locals were complaining of breathing problems and rashes; “strips of skin” have been peeling off cows, and chickens have died; and maize, yucca, plantain and cacao crops have wilted and shrivelled. “We fear there will soon be a very serious food shortage in the region,” she said.

The Guardian

India’s climate refugees forced to fight – here and now

The rising sea has drowned two of Jalaluddin Saha’s small homes and threatens a third. Last monsoon surging water ruined his crops and he and his family ran for their lives. His livestock drank the brine and died.

In eastern India, this 62-year-old retired schoolteacher is experiencing climate change first hand. So are the other 8,000-odd residents of Baliwara and other villages in the little island called Mousuni, facing the Bay of Bengal at one of the numerous mouths of the Ganga river that Indians consider sacred.

Thaindian News

1,500 farmers commit mass suicide in India

Over 1,500 farmers in an Indian state committed suicide after being driven to debt by crop failure, it was reported today.

The agricultural state of Chattisgarh was hit by falling water levels.

“The water level has gone down below 250 feet here. It used to be at 40 feet a few years ago,” Shatrughan Sahu, a villager in one of the districts, told Down To Earth magazine. “Most of the farmers here are indebted and only God can save the ones who do not have a bore well.”

The Independent

Concerns Raised About Coastal Levels of Flame-Retardant Chemicals

Flame-retardant chemicals that have been linked to reproductive and neurological problems in animals have seeped into coastal environments even in remote regions and have been found in high concentrations off populated areas such as Chicago and Southern California, a federal study revealed Tuesday.

“This is a wake-up call for Americans concerned about the health of our coastal waters and their personal health,” said John H. Dunnigan, assistant administrator of the National Ocean Service, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which released the report.

truthout

10-Year Study Uncovers Toxic Aspects of DBPs

University of Illinois geneticist Michael Plewa said that disinfection byproducts (DBPs) in water are the unintended consequence of water purification.

“The process of disinfecting water with chlorine and chloramines and other types of disinfectants generates a class of compounds in the water that are called disinfection byproducts. The disinfectant reacts with the organic material in the water and generates hundreds of different compounds. Some of these are toxic, some can cause birth defects, some are genotoxic, which damage DNA, and some we know are also carcinogenic.”

Environmental News Network

Leatherback Turtles Consuming Plastic

A new study looked at necropsy reports of more than 400 leatherbacks that have died since 1885 and found plastic in the digestive systems of more than a third of the animals. Besides plastic bags, the turtles had swallowed fishing lines, balloon fragments, spoons, candy wrappers and more.

Discovery Channel

Travel Unplugged: 15 Off-the-Grid Destinations

Visiting tourist sites “off-the-grid” usually means trekking to a geographically remote area with your bug spray, anti-malaria meds, and pith helmet in tow. In these secluded spots, going green is a necessity; there is simply no power supply to plug into. But even some of tourism’s urban sites are getting into the green game by creating cutting edge constructions or, sometimes, by simply changing the source of their electricity.

WebEcoist

A Paradise of Birds in Belize

Flamboyant feathered residents like emerald toucanets, scarlet macaws, pale-billed woodpeckers and hundreds of others can be spotted in the rain forests of western Belize in the Cayo District.

NY Times

Saving Madagascar

Current’s Adam Yamaguchi goes to otherworldly Madagascar, an island struggling to flourish after bouts with environmental suicide.

Current

Prize for ‘Sun in the box’ cooker

A cheap solar cooker has won first prize in a contest for green ideas. The Kyoto Box is made from cardboard and can be used for sterilising water or boiling or baking food. The Kenyan-based inventor hopes it can make solar cooking widespread in the developing world, supplanting the use of wood which is driving deforestation.

BBC News

Concrete Is Remixed With Environment in Mind

The bridge, built to replace one that collapsed in 2007, killing 13 people, is constructed almost entirely of concrete embedded with steel reinforcing bars, or rebar. But it is hardly a monolithic structure: the components are made from different concrete mixes, the recipes tweaked, as a chef would, for specific strength and durability requirements and to reduce the impact on the environment. One mix, incorporated in wavy sculptures at both ends of the bridge, is designed to stay gleaming white by scrubbing stain-causing pollutants from the air.

NY Times

Personal Care and Cleaning Products Safety Guide

Make a difference by avoiding 1,4-dioxane and supporting the companies who do!

The Organic Consumers Association (pdf)

15 Awesome Ways to Reuse Shipping Containers

Steel shipping containers outlive their usefulness as cargo carriers within 5 years, and they used to sit abandoned at shipyards for years. Now, they’re gaining increasing recognition for their durability, adaptability, light weight, low cost and ease of stacking, spurring a recycling trend that has resulted in shipping container sculpture, homes, hotels, museums and more. The possibilities are seemingly endless, as illustrated by these 15 amazing examples of cargo container reuse.

WebEcoist

Race and Toxic Release Facilities

Environmental sociologists have noted that environmental toxicity is most concentrated in communities that include a disproportionate proportion of poor, working class, and non-white people. The map below compares the locations of toxic release facilities (green) with the percentage of people of color in neighborhoods in and near Los Angeles (yellow = 0-40 percent people of color; red = 80-100 percent of color). The overlap is striking.

Sociological Images

Interactive Map of U.S. Factory Farms

Food & Water Watch has an interesting interactive map that allows you to click on states and see how many factory farms it has per county, broken down into cattle (meaning beef, I assume), hogs, dairy, broilers, and layers (the last two are both chickens). You can look at number of facilities or number of animals.

Sociological Images

Germany Bans Cultivation of GM Corn

Germany has banned the cultivation of GM corn, claiming that MON 810 is dangerous for the environment. But that argument might not stand up in court and Berlin could face fines totalling millions of euros if American multinational Monsanto decides to challenge the prohibition on its seed.

Spiegel Online

A cure for honey bee colony collapse?

For the first time, scientists have isolated the parasite Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia) from professional apiaries suffering from honey bee colony depopulation syndrome. They then went on to treat the infection with complete success.

Environmental News Network

10 Air Purifying Plants For Homes & Offices

Even in huge, busy cities, outdoor air is cleaner and preferable to indoor air. Why is that? One reason is that trees and plants are constantly cleaning the air outside. This suggests that the eco-minded homeowner or office dweller should go out and buy some plants – but which ones? With all the hype of “going green”, every plant on the market is being promoted as an air purifier! But not to worry – NASA has conducted an official study on the top 10 air purifying plants, assigning each one a score based on how well they remove chemical vapors, resist insects, and how easy they are to maintain.

WebEcoist

Changes in the Dairy Industry

The growth of these large dairies depends on very cheap rates for water used to irrigate agricultural land. Those dairies have to grow lots of alfalfa and other feed crops to feed so many cows, since they certainly can’t afford enough land to have thousands of cows on pasture. And big dairies produce enormous amounts of manure that have to be carted off somewhere each day, meaning they often have big manure lagoons where they store it (as well as spraying as much as possible on fields). The lagoons are lovely, if you haven’t ever been really close to one, or perhaps nearly fallen into one while conducting research for your thesis. Not that I know anyone who has had such an experience.

Sociological Images

The Hidden Link Between Factory Farms and Human Illness

You may be familiar with many of the problems associated with concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. These “factory farm” operations are often criticized for the smell and water pollution caused by all that concentrated manure; the unnatural, grain-heavy diets the animals consume; and the stressful, unhealthy conditions in which the animals live. You may not be aware, however, of the threat such facilities hold for you and your family’s health — even if you never buy any of the meat produced in this manner.

Mother Earth News

California farms lose main water source to drought

California’s main source of irrigation water is expected to go dry this year for most of its growers due to drought, idling at least 60,000 workers and up to 1 million acres of farmland, federal officials and experts said on Friday.

Reuters

Rare cheetah caught on camera trap in Sahara

There are thought to be less than 250 adult Northwest African or Saharan cheetahs, making the subspecies critically endangered, but very little is known about the cat.

The first camera-trap photographs of the cheetah, taken as part of a systematic survey of 1,750 square miles of the central Sahara, are providing scientists with information on population numbers, movement and how it interacts with its environment.

Telegraph

Reclaiming Oil Rigs as Oceanic Eco-Resorts

Morris Architects, a Houston-based architecture and design firm, recently took top honors for two of their submissions in the Radical Innovation in Hospitality design competition. The grand prize winner, the Oil Rig Platform Resort and Spa makes use of one of 4,000 oil rigs out in the Gulf of Mexico and transforms it into a luxurious eco-resort and spa. We love how the inspired renovation takes an iconic source of dirty energy and converts it to an eco-haven that generates all of its power from renewable sources.

Inhabitat

SunCat: Solar Batteries Powered by Sunshine

Designer and inventor extraordinaire Knut Karlsen recently unveiled an inspired approach to portable power that can’t be beat for its elegant simplicity: a prototype battery capable of charging itself when exposed to sunshine. His slick set of SunCat C-cells are wrapped in flexible photovoltaic panels and will slowly recharge when left to bask in the sun – just like a cat.

Inhabitat

UN Reaches Landmark Agreement to Reduce Global Mercury Pollution

Representatives from more than 140 countries today committed to reduce global mercury pollution, which will help protect the world’s citizens from the dangerous neurotoxin. This agreement was propelled by the United States’ reversal in policy, which also influenced policy reversals of other countries, including China and India. The announcement is a historic step forward in the fight against mercury pollution, according to scientists and policy experts at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Environmental News Network