Environmental Health in the News Archives

Stories previously listed on the EH News Homepage:

November 26, 2008

Greenhouse gases hit record levels last year
ENN From: Reuters
GENEVA (Reuters) - Gases blamed for global warming
reached record levels in the atmosphere last year, the United Nations weather agency said on Tuesday. Concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O) touched new highs after more steady rises in 2007, and methane had its largest annual increase in a decade, the World Meteorological Organization said.

November 25, 2008

Air Pollution Costs California Billions
ENN From: GLOBE-net
The air is so unhealthy in parts of California that it causes the state to lose $28 billion in economic activity each year, says a study by two economics professors at CaliforniaState University, Fullerton. Pollutants also cause more than 3,800 people to die prematurely. Jane Hall and Victor Brajer focused on the Los Angeles region and the San Joaquin Valley, northwest of the megalopolis. They found air pollution levels in both areas rivaled only Houston, Texas in their severity.

November 17, 2008

New bacteria discovered in raw milk
ENN From: Society for General Microbiology
Raw milk is illegal in many countries as it can be contaminated with potentially harmful microbes. Contamination can also spoil the milk, making it taste bitter and turn thick and sticky. Now scientists have discovered new species of bacteria that can grow at low temperatures, spoiling raw milk even when it is refrigerated. According to research published in the November issue of the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, the microbial population of raw milk is much more complex than previously thought.

Summit takes aim at climate change
From: http://www.signonsandiego.com
SACRAMENTO — Will the world's economic meltdown stall initiatives to curb global warming? World leaders in the campaign to address climate change will confront that question as they gather in Beverly Hills tomorrow and Wednesday to shape policies aimed at responding to the mounting threats to food production, public health and the environment.
“The goal is very simple: to form a broad international alliance,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said when he called for the summit, the first of its kind in the United States.

Novembr 14, 2008

California gets dire warning on global warming
From: Mercury News
Global warming will have a broad and devastating impact on California's economy over the next century, according to a report released Thursday. Roads and bridges, the water supply, agriculture, public health and even winter skiing all will be affected by global climate change, said the report by University of California-Berkeley agricultural and resource economics professors David Roland-Holst and Fredrich Kahrl.

November 12, 2008

Giant Asian smog cloud masks warming impact: U.N.
ENN From: Reuters
BEIJING (Reuters) - A three-kilometer thick cloud of brown soot and other pollutants hanging over Asia is darkening cities, killing thousands and damaging crops but may be holding off the worst effects of global warming, the U.N. said on Thursday. The vast plume of contamination from factories, fires, cars and deforestation contains some particles that reflect sunlight away from the earth, cutting its ability to heat the earth.

Ocotber 24, 2008

Many pesticides in EU may damage human brain: study
ENN From: Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) - Many pesticides used in the European Union may damage brain growth in fetuses and young children, according to a study published on Friday. The study urged the European Union to tighten restrictions.

Two jailed for Ivory Coast toxic dumping
ENN From: Reuters
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - A court in Ivory Coast jailed two people over the deadly 2006 dumping of toxic waste from a ship chartered by an international oil trader, but victims complained that not all of those responsible were punished. At least 17 people were killed and thousands more made ill by the dumping of the noxious waste at unprotected sites around the commercial capital Abidjan. The case caused a public outcry in the world's No. 1 cocoa producer and raised questions about the dumping of toxic materials in Africa.

Greenhouse gas 4 times higher than thought
From: Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Levels of a powerful greenhouse gas are four times as high as previously thought, according to new measurements released on Thursday. New analytical techniques show that about 5,400 metric tons of nitrogen trifluoride are in the atmosphere, with amounts increasing by about 11 percent per year.

October 22, 2008

WHO climate research agenda will make health count
ENN From: Science and Development Network
The WHO's new research agenda for climate change and health is a welcome effort towards making health considerations count for more in a post-Kyoto world, says an editorial in The Lancet. At a meeting of 80 international experts in Madrid, Spain, last week, a research plan with five priorities was agreed on for the WHO. These include identifying effective measures to strengthen public health systems; assessing the impact of non-health sector policy decisions; comparing the effectiveness of short-term interventions; and characterising indirect effects of climate change, such as the risk of conflict.

October 20, 2008

Climate change outracing EU targets, WWF warns
ENN From: http://euobserver.com
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Climate change is happening faster and its extent is wider than the world's leading scientists had predicted, according to a new report by pro-green group the WWF released on Monday (20 October), urging the EU to take ambitious action. "It is clear that climate change is already having a greater impact than most scientists had anticipated, so it's vital that international mitigation and adaptation responses become swifter and more ambitious," Jean-Pascal van Ypersele - a professor of climatology at the Louvain university in Belgium and newly elected vice chair of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - said, unveiling the study.

GM crops deserve more reasoned debate
ENN From: Science and Development Network
he World Bank recently estimated that a doubling of food prices over the last three years could push 100 million people in low-income countries deeper into poverty. And the future does not look brighter. Food prices, although likely to fall from their current peaks, are predicted to remain high over the next decade.

October 15, 2008

New Guide on Sewage Sludge Use in Food Production
ENN From: Organic Consumers Association
Minneapolis - Consumers should choose foods produced without sludge and avoid use of sewage sludge-based fertilizer products in home gardens, concludes a new guide by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP).

October 7, 2008

Cut the Sprawl, Cut the Warming
ENN From: NY Times
For years, while Washington slept, most of the serious work on climate change has occurred in the states, and no state has worked harder than California. The latest example of California’s originality is a new law — the nation’s first — intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by curbing urban sprawl and cutting back the time people have to spend in their automobiles.

October 6, 2008

Ground-level ozone pollution to increase
ENN from: The Independent
Ground-level ozone pollution is contributing to hundreds of deaths a year in the UK - and climate change could help make the situation worse, a report from the Royal Society warned today. The study said that background ozone levels had been growing by 6 per cent a decade since the 1980s, and were now at a level where they were having an impact on health and the environment.

Hundreds of deaths from ozone predicted
From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Hundreds more people could die because of increasing levels of ozone at street level, according to scientists. A study by the Royal Society found ground levels of ozone, the pollutant caused when sunlight hits a mixture of gases in the air, has risen by six per cent per decade since the 1980s.

September 26, 2008

Don't blame cities for climate change, see them as solutions
ENN from: SAGE Publications UK
Cities are being unfairly blamed for most of humanity's greenhouse gas emissions and this threatens efforts to tackle climate change, warns a study in the October 2008 issue of the journal Environment and Urbanization. The paper says cities are often blamed for 75 to 80 percent of emissions, but that the true value is closer to 40 percent. It adds that the potential for cities to help address climate change is being overlooked because of this error.

August 27, 2008

Green Building Standards Under Construction
ENN from: Worldwatch Institute
The world's leading certification system for sustainable architecture is set to undergo its most sweeping changes in 2009. The proposed revisions encourage designs that would reduce a building's impact on global climate change. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, commonly known as LEED, has become the standard for green building design since the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a nongovernmental organization, crafted the rating system eight years ago. Architecture that voluntarily improves energy efficiency, water conservation, and indoor air quality has surged in popularity in the past two years, especially in Europe and major U.S. cities.

World Water Week demands halt to food wastage
ENN from: The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
Scientists and experts from around the world have warned that global food wastage must be halved by 2025 to meet the challenges of feeding the rapidly-growing population and preserving global water supplies. Continued high rates of food overproduction and waste will not only cause food but also water shortages, according to a report by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

August 13, 2008

Robot vehicle surveys deep sea off Pacific Northwest
ENN From: National Science Foundation
The first scientific mission with Sentry, a newly developed robot capable of diving as deep as 5,000 meters (3.1 miles) into the ocean, has been successfully completed by scientists and engineers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of Washington (UW). The vehicle surveyed and helped pinpoint several proposed deep-water sites for seafloor instruments that will be deployed in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s planned Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI).

July 31, 2008

Even with "blue skies", is Beijing's air safe?
ENN From: Reuters
BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing has vowed the Olympic Games will take place under blue skies, not the murky "sauna" haze that has shrouded the city recently, but even on apparently clear days pollution levels may not be safe for athletes. Officials lavished 120 billion yuan ($17.6 billion) on cleaning up the capital with factories dozens of miles away closed down, construction halted, and over half the city's 3.3 million cars cleared from the roads.

California to sue EPA on greenhouse gas emissions
From: Reuters
California will sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for "wantonly" ignoring its duty to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from ships, aircraft, and construction and agricultural equipment, state Attorney General Jerry Brown said on Wednesday. Brown said the lawsuit, to be announced at a news conference at the Port of Long Beach on Thursday and filed in Washington after a 180-day waiting period mandated by the Clean Air Act, was meant to force the EPA into action.

July 29, 2008

Lawmakers Agree to Ban Toxins in Children's Items
Washington Post: By Lyndsey Layton, Staff Writer
Congressional negotiators agreed yesterday to a ban on a family of toxins found in children's products, handing a major victory to parents and health experts who have been clamoring for the government to remove harmful chemicals from toys. The ban, which would take effect in six months, would have significant implications for U.S. consumers, whose homes are filled with hundreds of plastic products designed for children that may be causing dangerous health effects.

July 23, 2008

Nanotech risk concerns 'must be addressed'
ENN: Science and Development Network
[BARCELONA] Researchers must address the lack of knowledge about risks posed by nanotechnology in the health sector to provide appropriate input to policymakers, cautions a leading expert of the European Commission. More risk assessment studies are needed to understand what exactly defines toxicity due to nanoparticles, and what kind of regulations the sector needs, said Hermann Stamm, head of nanotechnology and molecular imaging at the Institute for Health and Consumer Protection in the European Commission's Joint Research Council.

July 8, 2008

Researchers say popular fish contains potentially dangerous fatty acid combination
ENN: Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center
Farm-raised tilapia, one of the most highly consumed fish in America, has very low levels of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids and, perhaps worse, very high levels of omega-6 fatty acids, according to new research from Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

June 4, 2008

Cell Phone Use During Pregnancy Can Seriously Damage Your Baby
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
Women who use mobile phones when pregnant are more likely to give birth to children with behavioral problems, according to a study of more than 13,000 children.Pregnant women using the handsets just two or three times a day was enough to raise the risk of their babies developing hyperactivity and difficulties with conduct, emotions and relationships by the time they reached school age.

May 30, 2008

Harnessing Energy from the Oceans
ENN: The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
Forever moving - our restless oceans have enough energy to power the world. As long as the Earth turns and the moon keeps its appointed cycle, the oceans will absorb and dissipate vast amounts of kinetic energy - a renewable energy resource of enormous potential. But harnessing this resource has proven more difficult than first thought. In this the latest installment of the GLOBE-Net Series on Renewable Energy - we look at how the power of the oceans might eventually find its place among other forms of renewable energy.

Is water becoming 'the new oil'?
ENN: The Christian Science Monitor
Public fountains are dry in Barcelona, Spain, a city so parched there’s a €9,000 ($13,000) fine if you’re caught watering your flowers. A tanker ship docked there this month carrying 5 million gallons of precious fresh water — and officials are scrambling to line up more such shipments to slake public thirst.

Most caregivers of young children lack basic knowledge of potentially toxic household products
ENN: Wiley-Blackwell
According to a new study, knowledge of potentially toxic household substances among primary caregivers for young children is alarmingly poor. The results show that less than one-third of primary caregivers for children under the age of six could correctly estimate the toxicity of household poisons. The study is being presented at the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine’s 2008 Annual Meeting.

May 28, 2008

Strong link between crime, lead exposure in children
By Thomas H. Maugh II and Marla Cone, Los Angeles Times
The first study to follow lead-exposed children from before birth into adulthood has shown that even relatively low levels of lead permanently damage the brain and are linked to higher numbers of arrests, particularly for violent crime. Previous studies linking lead to such problems have used indirect measures of lead and criminality, and critics have argued that socioeconomic and other factors may be responsible for the observed effects.

May 26, 2008

The Other Footprint : The Water Footprint
ENN: Keep Green Going
By now, you’ve all heard of the Carbon Footprint — the measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide. Today, KGG sheds light on the other foot; Your Water Footprint.

May 23, 2008

Nonstick Toxicity
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
Chemical promotes cancer development in fish The experiments were fishy. But they appear to have uncovered something that rodent studies missed: a potential cancer risk posed by a compound used to manufacture nonstick coatings. By mimicking the action of estrogen, this chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid, can promote cancer development, researchers report in an upcoming Environmental Health Perspectives.

May 22, 2008

Basic food crops dangerously vulnerable
From: WWF
In the case of wheat, for instance, as a deadly new strain of Black Stem Rust devastates harvests across Africa and Arabia, and threatens the staple food supply of a billion people from Egypt to Pakistan, the areas where potentially crop and life-saving remnant wild wheat relatives grow are only minimally protected.
“Our basic food plants have always been vulnerable to attack from new strains of disease or pests and the result is often mass hunger and starvation, as anyone who remembers their school history of the Irish Potato Famine will know,” said Liza Higgins-Zogib, Manager of People and Conservation at WWF International.

May 21, 2008

U.S. Postal Service Begins E-Waste Recycling Program
ENN: Worldwatch Institute
In an effort to improve electronics recycling in the United States, the U.S. Postal Service is developing a free national collection program for small electronic items. The program, now in a pilot stage, provides courtesy envelopes with pre-paid postage for patrons to deposit their unwanted digital cameras, printer cartridges, MP3 players, cell phones, and PDAs. International recycling company Clover Technologies Group processes the devices in its U.S. and Mexican facilities and then refurbishes and resells them if possible.

May 16, 2008

Los Angeles Eyes Sewage as a Source of Water
New York Times: By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
OS ANGELES — Faced with a persistent drought and the threat of tighter water supplies, Los Angeles plans to begin using heavily cleansed sewage to increase drinking water supplies, joining a growing number of cities considering similar measures. Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, who opposed such a plan a decade ago over safety concerns, announced the proposal on Thursday as part of a package of initiatives to put the city, the nation’s second largest, on a stricter water budget. The other plans include increasing fines for watering lawns during restricted times, tapping into and cleaning more groundwater, and encouraging businesses and residents to use more efficient sprinklers and plumbing fixtures.

May 15, 2008

U.S. Using Food Crisis to Boost Bio-Engineered Crops
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has slipped a controversial ingredient into the $770 million aid package it recently proposed to ease the world food crisis, adding language that would promote the use of genetically modified crops in food-deprived countries.
The value of genetically modified, or bio-engineered, food is an intensely disputed issue in the U.S. and in Europe, where many countries have banned foods made from genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

Greenhouse gases highest for 800,000 years
ENN: Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
OSLO (Reuters) - Greenhouse gases are at higher levels in the atmosphere than at any time in at least 800,000 years, according to a study of Antarctic ice on Wednesday that extends evidence that mankind is disrupting the climate.
Carbon dioxide and methane trapped in tiny bubbles of air in ancient ice down to 3,200 meters (10,500 ft) below the surface of Antarctica add 150,000 years of data to climate records stretching back 650,000 years from shallower ice drilling.

May 2, 2008

Bisphenol-A, Check the # on Your Bottle.
From: , Keep Green Going
How many of you drink from a Nalgene bottle? What’s the number within the triangle on the bottom? If you’ve got the wrong number down there you may be putting yourself at risk. You’ve probably seen something in the news lately that some plastics are getting a lot of negative press; most notably, drinking bottles made with hard plastic. This all surrounds a chemical known as Bisphenol A to the chemists and engineers or “BPA” on the streets. This chemical has been shown to leach out of common plastics and cause health issues ranging from behavioral issues to irregular breast growth.

May 1, 2008

Pittsburgh, Los Angeles have worst U.S. air pollution
ENN: Reuters, By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pittsburgh, a former steel-making center once known for its sooty skies, is the worst U.S. city for short-term particle pollution, the American Lung Association announced on Thursday. It was the first time a city outside California topped any of the association's three lists for different kinds of pollution in its annual "State of the Air" report.

Toilet Truths
ENN: Global Policy Innovations Program
Despite modern marvels such as the space toilet, much of the world still endures a medieval level of sanitation. Nearly 2.6 billion people live without basic services, forced to defecate on the ground or line up to pay for the use of soiled latrines.
Some historians give the flush toilet mythological origins in the court of King Minos of Crete. Queen Elizabeth I had one as well, built by her godson in 1596. In the nineteenth century, architects started to incorporate water closet innovations into their designs and the modern toilet was born. Thomas Crapper, a British plumber, had a hand in perfecting the cistern to make flushing quieter and more polite.

Report Calls for Better Animal Waste Treatment
ENN: , Worldwatch Institute
One step beyond her front door, Jayne Clampitt is greeted with the toxic fumes flowing from the roughly 1 million gallons of hog manure stored at her neighbor's farm. She no longer dries her family's laundry outside, her children avoid the nearby polluted stream, and she worries that their shallow drinking well will also be contaminated with toxins. " We thought there was this unspoken connection between farmers, respect and stewardship. But we don't see that anymore," said Clampitt, whose family raises livestock in northwest Iowa. "I should not be forced to move out of my home."

April 29, 2008

Poor children main victims of climate change: U.N.
ENN: Reuters By Jeremy Lovell
LONDON (Reuters) - Millions of the world's poorest children are among the most vulnerable and unwitting victims of climate change caused by the rich developed world, a United Nations report said on Tuesday, calling for urgent action.
The UNICEF report "Our Climate, Our Children, Our Responsibility" measured action on targets set in the Millennium Development Goals to halve child poverty by 2015. It found failure on counts from health to survival, education and sex equality.

Safe water? Lessons from Kazakhstan
ENN: www.nottingham.ac.uk
Despite significant efforts to improve access to safe water and sanitation, a new report co-authored by an expert at The University of Nottingham, argues that much more needs to be done. A major survey in Kazakhstan found that, despite meeting the UN definition of what constitutes safe water, a large number of people reported suffering from illnesses like hepatitis and gastroenteritis, and infant mortality.

Desalination Raises Environmental, Cost Concerns
ENN: Ben Block, Worldwatch Institute
As global freshwater reserves dry up, desalination plants are receiving greater attention as an option for providing both drinking water supplies and agricultural irrigation. But a new study released on Thursday raises several concerns about the environmental impact and cost effectiveness of the widely touted technology to convert seawater to fresh water.

Making a Killing from the Food Crisis
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
The world food crisis is hurting a lot of people, but global agribusiness firms, traders and speculators are raking in huge profits.
Much of the news coverage of the world food crisis has focussed on riots in low-income countries, where workers and others cannot cope with skyrocketing costs of staple foods. But there is another side to the story: the big profits that are being made by huge food corporations and investors. Cargill, the world's biggest grain trader, achieved an 86% increase in profits from commodity trading in the first quarter of this year. Bunge, another huge food trader, had a 77% increase in profits during the last quarter of last year. ADM, the second largest grain trader in the world, registered a 67% per cent increase in profits in 2007.

April 24, 2008

EPA scientists complain about political pressure
ENN: H. JOSEF HEBERT, AP News
Hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency scientists say they have been pressured by superiors to skew their findings, according to a survey released Wednesday by an advocacy group. The Union of Concerned Scientists said more than half of the nearly 1,600 EPA staff scientists who responded online to a detailed questionnaire reported they had experienced incidents of political interference in their work.

Arctic ice seen melting faster than anticipated
ENN: Laura MacInnis (Reuters)
GENEVA (Reuters) - Arctic ice may be melting faster than most climate change science has concluded, the conservation group WWF said in a report published on Thursday. It found that ice in Greenland and across the Arctic region was retreating "at rates significantly faster than predicted in previous expert assessments."

April 17, 2008

Current Major Flooding in U.S. a Sign of Things to Come
From: NOAA
Major floods striking America’s heartland this week offer a preview of the spring seasonal outlook, according to NOAA’s National Weather Service. Several factors will contribute to above-average flood conditions, including record rainfall in some states and snow packs, which are melting and causing rivers and streams to crest over their banks. This week, more than 250 communities in a dozen states are experiencing flood conditions.
The science supporting NOAA’s short-term forecasts allows for a high level of certainty. National Weather Service forecasters highlighted potential for the current major flood event a week in advance and began working with emergency managers to prepare local communities for the impending danger.

April 16, 2008

U.S. Cites Fears on Chemical In Plastics
Washington Post: Lyndsey Layton (Staff Writer)
A federal health agency acknowledged for the first time yesterday concerns that a chemical found in thousands of everyday products such as baby bottles and compact discs may cause cancer and other serious disorders. The draft report by the National Toxicology Program signaled a turning point in the government's position on bisphenol A, or BPA, a chemical so ubiquitous in the United States that it has been detected in the urine of 93 percent of the population over 6 years of age.

World must reform agriculture now or face dire crisis: report
ENN: The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
The world will face social upheaval and environmental disasters if agriculture is not radically reformed to better serve the poor and hungry, a landmark UN-sponsored report said Tuesday. The warning in the report by the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) comes amid growing discontent among the world's poorest over rising food prices.

Agriculture - The Need for Change
ENN: United Nations Environment Programme
Washington/London/Nairobi/Delhi, 15 April 2008 - The way the world grows its food will have to change radically to better serve the poor and hungry if the world is to cope with a growing population and climate change while avoiding social breakdown and environmental collapse. That is the message from the report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, a major new report by over 400 scientists which is launched today.
The assessment was considered by 64 governments at an intergovernmental plenary in Johannesburg last week.

April 14, 2008

Nature's Answers to the Sanitation Challenge
ENN: United Nations Environment Programme
At a prison on the East coast of Africa, in-mates are pioneering a sanitation project that is working with nature to neutralize human wastes.
The initiative, involving the development of a wetland to purify sewage, is expected to cost a fraction of the price of high-tech treatments while also triggering scores of environmental, economic and social benefits.

Sea Salt Worsens Coastal Air Pollution
ENN: University of Calgary
Air pollution in the world's busiest ports and shipping regions may be markedly worse than previously suspected, according to a new study showing that industrial and shipping pollution is exacerbated when it combines with sunshine and salty sea air.
In a paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience, a team of researchers that included University of Calgary chemistry professor Hans Osthoff report that the disturbing phenomenon substantially raises the levels of ground-level ozone and other pollutants in coastal areas.

Aprill 11, 2008

Mideast can avert impending water crisis: World Bank
ENN: Reuters
RABAT (Reuters) - The Middle East is overusing limited water resources and the amount of water available per head will halve by 2050, leading to social strains as more people quit the countryside, the World Bank said on Thursday. But a crisis can still be averted if governments seize the opportunity to repair water networks, build new infrastructure including desalination plants and educate people not to waste limited resources, according to a report by the bank.

April 10, 2008

Climate change rises on World Bank agenda
ENN: Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Climate change is now one of the World Bank's top concerns because of its expected impact on health and economic growth in developing countries, the bank's lead environmental economist said. Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are where global warming's damage will disproportionately be felt, and that makes it a key issue for the World Bank and other financial institutions aiming to foster development, said Kirk Hamilton, co-author of the Global Monitoring Report.

Food Prices Spiral Out of Control in the Developing World
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
These days you hear a lot about the world financial crisis. But there's another world crisis under way - and it's hurting a lot more people. I'm talking about the food crisis. Over the past few years the prices of wheat, corn, rice and other basic foodstuffs have doubled or tripled, with much of the increase taking place just in the last few months. High food prices dismay even relatively well-off Americans - but they're truly devastating in poor countries, where food often accounts for more than half a family's spending.

April 9, 2008

World food shortages to stay, riots a risk: FAO
ENN: Mayank Bhardwaj (Reuters)
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Food riots which have struck several impoverished countries could spread with shortages and high prices set to continue for some time, the head of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said. A combination of high oil and fuel prices, rising demand for food in a wealthier Asia, the use of farmland and crops for biofuels, bad weather and speculation on futures markets have pushed up food prices, prompting violent protests in a handful of poor states.

Children’s Sunglasses Recalled for Lead Paint Content
ENN: Earth 911
he U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced a voluntary recall of 144,000 StyleMark children’s sunglasses because they contained excessive levels of lead. The affected glasses have Main Street Drag characters on one lens, and style number DI25K7116 printed on the left temple. They have been sold at drug stores including Payless, Walgreen’s, Academy Sports, and CVS since October 2007.

April 8, 2008

Cow stomach holds key to turning corn into biofuel
ENN: Michigan State University
An enzyme from a microbe that lives inside a cow’s stomach is the key to turning corn plants into fuel, according to Michigan State University scientists. The enzyme that allows a cow to digest grasses and other plant fibers can be used to turn other plant fibers into simple sugars. These simple sugars can be used to produce ethanol to power cars and trucks. MSU scientists have discovered a way to grow corn plants that contain this enzyme. They have inserted a gene from a bacterium that lives in a cow’s stomach into a corn plant. Now, the sugars locked up in the plant’s leaves and stalk can be converted into usable sugar without expensive synthetic chemicals.

World’s Largest Tidal Turbine Successfully Installed
ENN: MetaEfficient
he world’s largest tidal turbine, weighing 1000 tonnes, has been installed in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough. The tidal turbine is rated at 1.2 megawatts, which is enough to power a thousand local homes. It was built by Marine Current Turbines, and it will be the first commercial tidal turbine to produce energy, when it begins operation later this year. The turbine has twin rotors measuring 16 meters in diameter. The rotors will operate for up to 18-20 hours per day to produce enough clean, green electricity.

April 7, 2008

Climate change a factor in deaths from disease: WHO
ENN: Reuters
MANILA (Reuters) - Climate change is one of the factors causing an increase in the incidence of diseases like malaria and dengue fever, the World Health Organization said on Monday.
At least 150,000 more people are dying each year of malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition and floods, all of which can be traced to climate change, said Shigeru Omi, the head of the WHO's Western Pacific office.
More than half of those deaths are in Asia, Omi told reporters.

California Threatens to Outlaw Sales of Raw Milk
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
California raw milk producers warn that a new law to impose strict requirements on raw milk, will outlaw and require the disposal of perfectly safe milk. AB 1735 requires that all raw milk sold in California be tested for 10 coliform bacteria per milliliter or less. But raw milk producers and activists say that most coliform bacteria is perfectly safe, and that tests are already carried out for a handful of such bacteria, including E. coli 0157:h7 and Listeria monocytogenes, that can cause disease in humans. The new law does not require testing for those bacteria.

April 4, 2008

Toxic Fumes, Blisters & Brain Damage: The Cost of Doing Business?
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
Karen Strecker is bracing. She's about to turn on the faucet, and there's a chance liquid manure is going to stream from the spout. "I've been taking a bath and actually had cow shit pour into the tub,'' Strecker says, matter-of-factly. She uses well water. "It's nasty."
Yet the threat of a sewage bath pales in comparison to a more dangerous problem: Breathing poisonous fumes. After years living next to Willet Dairy, the largest industrial farm in the state, Strecker and her neighbors in Genoa are reporting the kinds of health problems eco-watchdogs lose sleep over, from blistering eyelids to brain damage. Manure is known to release gases that, in high concentrations, are linked to those scary symptoms.

April 3, 2008

18 states sue EPA over greenhouse gas pollution
ENN: By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Eighteen states sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday for failing to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new cars and trucks, one year after the Supreme Court ruled that the agency had the power to do so.
The suit seeks EPA's response to the high court's April 2, 2007, ruling, a landmark decision seen as a sharp defeat for the Bush administration's policy on climate change.

March 28, 2008

U.S. West warming faster than rest of world: study
ENN: Reuters
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The U.S. West is heating up at nearly twice the rate of the rest of the world and is likely to face more drought conditions in many of its fast-growing cities, an environmental group said on Thursday. By analyzing federal government temperature data, the Natural Resources Defense Council concluded that the average temperature in the 11-state Western region from 2003-07 was 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit (0.94 degrees Celsius) higher than the historical average of the 20th century.

Should You Ditch Your Chemical Mattress?
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
Susan Greenfield and her girlfriend Llina Kempner couldn't wait for their new memory-foam mattress top to arrive. For months, they'd heard friends rave about how the high-tech material molds itself to your body. But when they unwrapped the three-inch-thick pad in their Manhattan apartment, they noticed a strong, acrid odor. "My nose and my lungs were miserable," recalls Greenfield. For the two nights Kempner slept on the mattress top, she felt nauseated. After Greenfield, who is chemically sensitive, had an asthma attack in the middle of the night, the couple returned the mattress pad. But its stench lingered in the apartment for weeks.

March 28, 2008

Why Monsanto Doesn't Want You to Know About Those Hormones in Your Dairy
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
New York state dairy farmer John Bunting doesn't use an artificial bovine growth hormone on his cows for one key reason. He doesn't want them getting sick. "I care about my cows," he said, "I like my cows." The growth hormone in question is made by the Monsanto Company. The current debate about Monsanto's hormone involves labels. The multinational agricultural biotech company seems to be getting nervous about the prospect of telling consumers what's in their milk - or rather, what's not in their milk.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Toughened ozone rule falls short of recommendation
ENN: Reuters By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Environmental Protection Agency toughened standards for ozone pollution on Wednesday, but these new requirements are more lax than the agency's own scientists recommended. Stephen Johnson, the agency's chief, said he complied with the Clean Air Act and with scientific data in setting the new ozone standard at 75 parts per billion in ambient air in the United States. The previous standard was 80 parts per billion.

Eating Soy Helps Women Prevent Breast Cancer
ENN: Gimundo
If you're a tofu-lover, you may be in luck: A new government-sponsored study from Japan claims that women who make soy-based products a regular part of their daily diet face dramatically lower risks of developing breast cancer than those who don't. The study tracked 25,000 women between the ages of 40 and 69 over a ten-and-a-half year period, finding that women who consumed around 3.5 ounces of tofu or 1.75 ounces of "natto" (a type of fermented bean) each day were one-third less likely to develop the dreaded disease, thanks to a cancer-fighting compound called genistein that's naturally found in soy.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Asia shows way to fight dengue as global spread looms
ENN: Reuters, By Tan Ee Lyn
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Clarissa Poon was one of an estimated 50 million people who contracted mosquito-borne dengue fever last year. She spent an agonizing week on a drip in a Bangkok hospital as she battled the potentially deadly disease. "There was not a single moment when I wasn't aching everywhere, dizzy and nauseous. I was so weak I couldn't even stand," said Poon, who caught the illness during a family holiday at a beach resort in Thailand.

Monday, March 10, 2008

UN: Climate danger for Middle East, North Africa
From: , Science and Development Network
Climate change is likely to cause agricultural losses in the Middle East and North Africa, threatening the food security of many countries, the UN has warned. A report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), released at a conference in Cairo, Egypt, this week (1—5 March), reviews studies and models of predicted climate-change impacts over the period 1980—99 and for 2080—99 — including reports from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Friday, March 7, 2008

Senate Votes For Safer Products: Enforcement Would Get Major Boost
Washington Post: By Annys Shin, Staff Writer
The Senate yesterday approved the most far-reaching changes to the nation's product safety system in a generation, responding to recalls of millions of lead-laced toys that rattled consumers last year. Lawmakers still have to resolve key differences between the Senate bill and a similar measure that passed the House in December. While the Senate version is considered by consumer advocates to be tougher, both contain provisions that would require retailers and manufacturers to be more vigilant about product safety

Monday, March 3, 2008

Ethanol and Intensive Confinement Factory Farms--A Toxic Synergy
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
CAFO's = Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations
Also known as Factory Farms, Animal Factories, and blots on the U.S. rural landscape. They produce smelly wastes from "farm" animals including cattle and pigs -- variable wastes that are then disposed of in a wildly under-regulated, chemical witches brew commonly called Sludge. Also commonly mislabeled "Fertilizer," it's hazardously dumped in enormous quantities on U.S. food-growing farm fields.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Risks of Nanotechnology Remain Uncertain
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
Toxicology experiments on nanomaterials often seem to run the same way: put some nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, or other kind of nanosized structures in a petri dish, water column, soil sample, or lab test tube of choice. Then expose daphnids, microbes, zebrafish, pig lung cells, human skin cells, or other model organisms to the new and exciting materials. Sit back and see what happens.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Dead poultry raises bird flu alarm in Vietnam
ENN: Reuters
HANOI (Reuters) - Dead poultry have been found in rivers and streams in northern Vietnam, a sign of a possible new bird flu outbreak during a prolonged cold spell, officials said on Tuesday.
The Agriculture Ministry said in a report that callers to an animal health department hotline reported large numbers of dead birds in five provinces, but was not specific.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Indonesian boy dies of bird flu
ENN: Reuters
JAKARTA (Reuters) - A 3-year-old Indonesian boy from South Jakarta has died from bird flu, taking the country's death toll from the virus to 105, a health ministry official said on Monday.
Nyoman Kandun, director general of communicable disease control at the ministry, said the boy died on Friday and two tests had confirmed he contracted the H5N1 virus.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

EU wants partial ban of toxic paint removers
ENN: Reuters
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The sale and use of paint removers containing dichloromethane, a chemical with toxic vapor, would be restricted under a proposal made by European Union regulators on Thursday.
Some experts have expressed concern that a number of accidents and deaths in the EU in recent years were linked to use of the substance, the European Commission said.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Sampling Of Drinking Water To Track Emerging Chemical
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
DALTON, Ga. - Georgia plans to begin statewide sampling this year at drinking water intakes for perfluorooctanoic acid, according to a program manager of the Environmental Protection Division. The acid is labeled a "likely carcinogen" by a federal panel and is found in the Conasauga River.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Preparing for Global Warming's Health Crisis
ENN: UCLA Today Online
Hurricanes pound the Gulf Coast with unrelenting force. Floods deluge the Midwest. Wildfires rage out of control in California and Florida. A "red tide" of algae blooms off the West Coast, endangering marine and coastal wildlife. Dengue fever spikes in Mexico and looms over the United States.
No one can say with certainty that any single one of these events is due to global climate change. But there is little doubt among scientists that we are making unprecedented changes to our environment, with grave potential consequences already upon us and others on the horizon.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

UK to spur research into climate impact on poor
ENN: Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will increase research into the possible impacts of climate change on the world's most vulnerable people, including deeper poverty and conflict, the international development minister said.
Secretary of State Douglas Alexander said his department will spend 20 million pounds ($39.25 million) a year over the next five years, a tenfold increase, to pinpoint where global warming will hit hardest and show how to proof development against more extreme weather and rising seas.

Thursday, January 31, 2008

A garbage /septage cocktail for fuel.
ENN: Green Energy News
Here’s a frothy brew you wouldn’t want to put a straw into: a not-so-tasty blend of sewage and garbage. As unappealing as it may seem together the two can cut greenhouse gases, help cleanup water supplies and add a new source of green and endlessly renewable fuel, all with the help of a new patented invention by Viridis Waste Control: Septage Bioreactor Landfill (TM) technology.

Globalization Poison
ENN: Nin-Hai Tseng, Global Policy Innovations Program
If we're to do business, keep the poison away. Such is the message reverberating lately in the global marketplace.
Mercury tests of tuna sushi bought in October by the New York Times from Manhattan restaurants and stores revealed toxic levels high enough to warrant precaution for children and pregnant women. Some suppliers have argued that because mercury enters the oceans as an industrial pollutant, its presence in fish is out of their control and must instead be dealt with on a global level.

Harmful pesticides found in everyday food products
Seattle P-I: By Andrew Schneider
Government promises to rid the nation's food supply of brain-damaging pesticides aren't doing the job, according to the results of a yearlong study that carefully monitored the diets of a group of local children. The peer-reviewed study found that the urine and saliva of children eating a variety of conventional foods from area groceries contained biological markers of organophosphates, the family of pesticides spawned by the creation of nerve gas agents in World War II.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Polycarbonate Bottles unsafe for hot liquids
ENN:
CINCINNATI—When it comes to Bisphenol A (BPA) exposure from polycarbonate plastic bottles, it’s not whether the container is new or old but the liquid’s temperature that has the most impact on how much BPA is released, according to University of Cincinnati (UC) scientists. Scott Belcher, PhD, and his team found when the same new and used polycarbonate drinking bottles were exposed to boiling hot water, BPA, an environmental estrogen, was released 55 times more rapidly than before exposure to hot water.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Lead exposure tied to aging brain?
The Seattle Times: Malcom Ritter, The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Could it be that the "natural" mental decline that afflicts many older people is related to how much lead they absorbed decades before?
That's the provocative idea emerging from some recent studies, part of a broader area of new research that suggests some pollutants can cause harm that shows up only years after someone is exposed.

Friday, January 25, 2008

Climate change poses a huge threat to human health
ENN: BMJ-British Medical Journal
Climate change will have a huge impact on human health and bold environmental policy decisions are needed now to protect the world’s population, according to the author of an article published in the BMJ today.
The threat to human health is of a more fundamental kind than is the threat to the world’s economic system, says Professor McMichael, a Professor of public health from the Australian National University. “Climate change is beginning to damage our natural life-support system,” he says.

As Supplies Dry Up, Growers Pass on Farming and Sell Water
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
(Press-Enterprise, Riverside CA) In a state where water has become an increasingly scarce commodity, a growing number of farmers are betting they can make more money selling their water supplies to thirsty cities and farms to the south than by growing crops.
The shortages this season among the most intense of the last decade are already shooting water prices skyward in many areas, and Los Angeles-area cities are begging for water and coaxing farmers to let their fields go to dust.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Waiter, There's Mercury in my fish! Online guide helps consumers make healthy choices.
ENN: Environmental Defense
(New York, NY — January 23, 2008) Tuna with unsafe levels of mercury is on dinner menus at some of New York’s most well known and expensive eateries, according to a report in today’s New York Times. At some restaurants, mercury levels in tuna sushi even exceeded limits set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Environmental Defense described the report as a wake up call that FDA was not protecting consumers from dangerous seafood.

As Supplies Dry Up, Growers Pass on Farming and Sell Water
From: , Organic Consumers Association,

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

U.S. Given Poor Marks on the Environment
New York Times: By FELICITY BARRINGER
A new international ranking of environmental performance puts the United States at the bottom of the Group of 8 industrialized nations and 39th among the 149 countries on the list. European nations dominate the top places in the ranking, which evaluates sanitation, greenhouse gas emissions, agricultural policies, air pollution and 20 other measures to formulate an overall score, with 100 the best possible.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

USDA Recommends That Food From Clones Stay Off the Market
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
The U.S. Department of Agriculture yesterday asked U.S. farmers to keep their cloned animals off the market indefinitely even as Food and Drug Administration officials announced that food from cloned livestock is safe to eat.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

In the Trenches for Clean Water
ENN: Saul Garlick, Global Policy Innovations Program
Water, our most basic need, is poised to be the most baffling challenge of the 21st century. It is being ignored wantonly at a time when more than 1 million people per year die from its scarcity and contamination. Children under age five account for at least 90 percent of water-related deaths. Meanwhile, economic productivity and educational opportunities are lost to illness, leaving millions more in an impoverished state even if they do survive their first five years of life.
Access to water is a human right. Yet that statement makes many people uncomfortable. Most in the developed world can hardly imagine water being anything more than a nominal expense that is easily drawn from a faucet. They think, "Surely it is a commodity to be bought and sold. It hardly costs anything, and it is even reusable, so what's the big deal?"

Is Plastic Making Us Fat?
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
Being fat has long been seen as a personal problem, fixed only by struggling against the proliferation of fast food restaurants, unlucky genes, and a sedentary life.
But could something in the environment also be making Americans fat in epidemic numbers?

Monday, January 14, 2008

Will Current Organic Standards Save us from GMO Contamination?
ENN: Organic Consumers Association
Early Beginnings in the 80's -- Widespread development and use of organic standards began in the 1980's to safeguard and systematize an alternative way (organic) of agriculture and handling food. Among a detailed list of prohibited substances in organic systems are chemical pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers. Because the organic system recognized from the start that it would likely remain a small component of agriculture, and that contamination would inevitably happen through background pollution such as polluted water, air and drift, it proposed a system based on a "practice standard," rather than on measuring the purity of an end product. This practice standard defines and prescribes certain methods that are designed to eliminate (or minimize) the potential for contamination from the list of prohibited substances. Thus testing has not been relied on as a primary method to verify organic integrity, and instead a system and philosophy of following an "organic practice standard" has been adopted worldwide.

Monday, January 7, 2008

Tuberculosis exposure feared on India-to-U.S. flight
ENN: Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. health officials are trying to track down 44 people who sat near a woman infected with a hard-to-treat form of tuberculosis aboard an airliner from India to determine whether they have been infected, authorities said on Friday.
The infected woman is 30 years old and is being treated for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, or MDR TB, at a hospital in the San Francisco area, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She had been diagnosed in India with MDR TB but traveled last month anyway, the CDC said.

Friday, January 4, 2008

First-ever study to link increased mortality specifically to carbon dioxide emissions
ENN: Stanford University
A Stanford scientist has spelled out for the first time the direct links between increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and increases in human mortality, using a state-of-the-art computer model of the atmosphere that incorporates scores of physical and chemical environmental processes. The new findings, to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, come to light just after the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent ruling against states setting specific emission standards for this greenhouse gas based in part on the lack of data showing the link between carbon dioxide emissions and their health effects.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Handling Pesticides Associated With Greater Asthma Risk In Farm Women
ENN: American Thoracic Society
"Farm women are an understudied occupational group," said Jane Hoppin, Sc.D., of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and lead author of the study. "More than half the women in our study applied pesticides, but there is very little known about the risks."

Insect Attack May Have Been Death Knell for Dinosaurs
ENN: Oregon State University
CORVALLIS, Ore. — Asteroid impacts or massive volcanic flows might have occurred around the time dinosaurs became extinct, but a new book argues that the mightiest creatures the world has ever known may have been brought down by a tiny, much less dramatic force — biting, disease-carrying insects.

Thousands of Tons of Organic Food Produced Using Toxic Chemicals
ENN: Straight to the Source : Daily Mail, UK, January 1, 2008
Thousands of tons of organic vegetables sold in British shops this year were produced using toxic chemical pesticides, it emerged yesterday. Many shoppers - who pay premium prices for "naturally" grown veg - are unaware that any chemicals are allowed on any organic produce.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Solatubes: Power-free lighting solution
ENN: Triple Pundit
If you're looking for an innovative and highly energy efficient daylighting system, Solatube may be the answer. These sunlight tubes combine art and science to provide beautiful and functional daylighting. This technology has actually been tauted as one of the most technologically advanced daylighting products available today. The combination of creative component integration along with a sleek design provides an abundance of pure, clean and natural light for any interior space.