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"Greener" Computers 19 y
Toxins in computers include lead, brominated fire retardants (BFRs), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and the heavy metals cadmium, chromium, and mercury. Find out how to safely recycle your old computers, and better yet, purchase "greener" computers in the first place!
Control-Alt-Recycle
Tips on greener computing
By Pam Lundquist and P.W. McRandle, for the Green Guide 06 Apr 2004
OK computer.
U.S. consumers are being cheated out of the chance to buy the greenest possible computers, according to the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition and other environmental groups that have joined forces on the Computer TakeBack Campaign. The campaign’s latest report card examined 28 computer manufacturers’ practices regarding hazardous materials, worker health and safety, and systems for taking back used products. CTBC found that fewer relatively eco-friendl ... read more End of the Human Race? 19 y
Industrial chemical toxins are found everywhere-in our food supply, our waters, our air, the very earth we stand upon. They may prove to be a far more subtle, or not so subtle, threat to the human race than we ever anticipated.
When I was a kid, I worried that nuclear annihilation would end the human race. While nukes are still a great threat to humans and the planet, a more subtle way to end the human race is taking place right under our noses. Male sperm counts are dropping, male infertility rates are rising, and more baby boys are being born with birth defects affecting their genitalia. All newborns, male and female, are born with chemical toxins already in their bodies, many of them known to be carcinogens.
Why? The most likely suspects for changes in fertility and birth defects are endocrine-disrupting c ... read more Male Birth Defects Increase 19 y
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's biomonitoring studies, issued every two years, reports that incidences of testicular cancer, autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and male birth defects have all increased dramatically over the past few decades. Researchers are trying to learn if low levels of industrial chemicals might be responsible for these disturbing health trends.
Over the past 30 years, the number of male babies born with hypospadias--a condition in which the urethra opens at the side rather than the end of the penis--has increased from a very rare condition to one affecting one in 250 boys. Another birth defect that has become more common recently is undescended testicles. Males with this condition are likely to develop low sperm counts and have an 11-fold increased risk of testicular cancer in early adulthood. The incidence of testicular cancer has doubled since the 1930’s. New research shows that declining male fertility has become a clear trend ... read more National Parks Threatened 19 y
Bush Admin. revisions in National Park Policy would weaken protections of natural resources and wildlife while allowing increased snowmobiles, off-road vehicles, cell phone towers, and other commercial activity.
August 26, 2005 Los Angeles Times: National News
Controversy Over Plans for Changes in U.S. Parks
By Julie Cart, Times Staff Writer
A series of proposed revisions of National Park policy has created a furor among present and former park officials who believe the changes would weaken protections of natural resources and wildlife while allowing an increase in commercial activity, snowmobiles and off-road vehicles.
National Park Service employees warn that the changes, which were proposed by the Department of the Interior and are undergoing a Park Service review, would fundamental ... read more Organic Beauty Products 19 y
U.S. Department of Agriculture to allow cosmetics to carry the "USDA Organic" seal! This will help distinguish healthy products from so-called "natural" ones that still contain toxins!
August 25, 2005 Los Angeles Times: Business
Organic Beauty Products Get a Lift With USDA About-Face
By Roger Vincent, Times Staff Writer
Turns out there is such a thing as organic lip balm after all.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has reversed its decision to yank the ”USDA Organic” seal from lotions and lip balms and will allow cosmetics to carry the prestigious round, green label.
Having the USDA imprimatur is essential for a product to stand out on store shelves crowded with allegedly organic merchandise, said David Bronner, president of Escondido, Calif.-based Dr. Bron ... read more Arctic Gwich'in People Blog 19 y
For most of us, protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil development is a matter of principle. But for the Gwich'in people who live in the Arctic and depend on the caribou herd, it is a matter of survival.
Porcupine Caribou grazing
Matthew Gilbert of the Gwich’in community is blogging at the NRDC
Action Fund this week and next. I hope you won’t miss this chance to hear directly
from a member of the community whose fate is tied to the Arctic Refuge.
http://blog.nrdcactionfund.org/
Here’s a short excerpt from Matthew’s Monday blog:
”The fact that it’s even a question whether we should drill in a pristine place like the Arctic Refuge, the breeding grounds of Polar Bears, the
Porcupine Caribou Herd, and many bird species, is an ethical travesty of our
time. The world is rea ... read more Chilean Wonderland 19 y
American creates vast nature preserve in Chile for $30 million, saving over 700 thousand acres of forest.
CALETA GONZALO, Chile — He spent more than $30 million and wrangled with the Chilean government and public for eight years, but a former American clothing magnate-turned-conservationist has realized his dream of transforming his vast lands in southern Chile into a nature sanctuary.
In a ceremony at the gateway to his rainy Patagonian wonderland, Douglas Tompkins, co-founder of clothing company Esprit, donated more than 714,000 acres of almost untouched forest to a Chilean foundation that will run South America’s biggest nature preserve.
The Pumalin Park Nature Sanctuary is a r ... read more Elephants in Great Plains?!? 19 y
A group of prominent ecologists is proposing to transplant lions, elephants and other African wildlife to the Great Plains of North America.
African Elephant or American Bison ? The idea, in the current issue of the journal Nature, could save species from extinction — in Africa, protection is spotty and habitat is shrinking. The authors say relocating animals could also restore biodiversity to North America that was lost when humans overran the landscape more than 10,000 years ago. Liora’s Comment: d-oh! Why not populate the plains with bison instead? The American bison once was found in most of Canada, the United States and parts of Mexico. Wild populations are now limited national parks and refuges. Bison can be found ... read more Clean Water Shortages 19 y
Shortages of safe water a growing global problem
About 1.1 billion people worldwide can’t get clean drinking water and 2.4 billion lack access to basic sanitation, the International Herald Tribune reports in a series on the looming global problem of freshwater scarcity. The U.N. wants to halve these numbers by 2015, but current progress suggests that target won’t be met -- it would effectively mean hooking up more than 100,000 people to clean water sources every day for the next 10 years. In much of the world, centralized irrigation and municipal water sources have taken the place of older water-management methods, but they’r ... read more "Green" Economics 19 y
"Green" Economists, formerly known as environmental economists, use economic arguments to persuade companies to clean up pollution, conserve natural areas, protect endangered species and wetlands, and address climate change, global warming, and water shortages.
The Wall Street Journal
Green Groups See Potent Tool In Economics
August 23, 2005 By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO Many economists dream of getting high-paying jobs on Wall Street, at prestigious think tanks and universities or at powerful government agencies like the Federal Reserve. But a growing number are choosing to use their skills not to track inflation or interest rates but to rescue rivers and trees. These are the ”green economists,” more formally known as environmental economists, who use economic arguments and systems to persuade companies to clean up pollution and to help conserve n ... read more Toxins in Newborns 19 y
Study finds newborns' blood contains a total of 287 toxic chemicals that can affect the brain and nervous system and can cause abnormal development.
Hundreds of Toxic Chemicals Measured
in Newborn Babies
Environmental Working Group
July 14, 2005
WASHINGTON — Not long ago, scientists believed that babies in the womb were largely protected from most toxic chemicals. A new study helps confirm an opposite view: that chemical exposure begins in the womb, as hundreds of industrial chemicals, pollutants and pesticides are pumped back and forth from mother to baby through umbilical cord blood.
Environmental Working Group (EWG) commissioned laboratory tests of 10 American Red Cross cord blood samples for the mos ... read more CALIFORNIANS:Biomonitoring Bill 19 y
California has moved closer to the establishment of the country's only statewide biomonitoring program, aimed at tracking chemicals such as plastics and flame retardants increasingly found in human bodies.
California Biomonitoring Bill Advances
by Douglas Fischer
Oakland Tribune, July 2005
From: Our Toxic Times, August 2005
The California Assembly Health Committee approved Senate Bill 600 by Sens. Don Perata, D-Oakland, and Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, agreeing with its aim to sample California’s population for a variety of compounds and track trends in chemical exposures.
The bill heads next to the full Assembly, the first time in five tries such a program has emerged from committee.
Also, the committee said cosmetics manufacturers would have to submit to the state a list of a ... read more Alaskan GlobalWarming 19 y
Global Warming is causing severe environmental changes in Alaska, including coastal erosion and thawing permafrost, adversely affecting Native peoples' way of life.
copyrights and photograph owned by Larry Moen
McCain, Clinton, other senators take global-warming tour in Alaska Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), and two other Lower-48 colleagues are touring Alaska this week to see for themselves the destructive impacts of climate change. They’ve flown over Yukon forests devastated by spruce bark beetles -- believed to be thriving thanks to unusually high temperatures -- and eyeballed receding glaciers at Kenai Fjords National Park. In Barrow, America’s northernmost city, the senators spoke with scientists and met Inupiat nativ ... read more "Perils of Pesticides" 19 y
Watch "The Perils of Pesticides" on Public Television!
On Friday, August 19th, Pesticide Action Network North America will be featured in a segment on NOW , an award winning television news magazine hosted by David Brancaccio on the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Titled "The Perils of Pesticides," the segment focuses on the problems of pesticide drift for people living and working in agricultural areas, and work that PAN and many of our partner groups and allies are doing to stop pesticide drift.
Check your local listings for channels and times. We encourage you to invite friends and family members who ... read more Spectacular Utah Lands Saved 19 y
Coalition of conservation groups successfully saves several Utah Wilderness parcels from being leased for oil and gas exploration. See stunning Photos of areas saved!
Lands Saved from Utah BLM’s Oil and Gas Lease Sale
South rim of Lockhart Basin; within viewshed of Canyonlands National Park
Lockhart Basin seen from the air
Horsehead Rock - located on Hatch Point
BLM DROPS PROTESTED OIL AND GAS LEASES FROM AUGUST SALE Due to protests filed by a coalition of conservation groups, comprised of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), The Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, and the Grand Canyon Trust, and concerns of the National Park Service, the Bu ... read more Protect Arctic Refuge from Oil Drilling! 19 y
Make Sure Congress Gets the Picture! TAKE ACTION to stop oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge!
Autumn in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
MAKE SURE CONGRESS GETS THE PICTURE!
The fate of the Arctic Refuge will be determined in mid-September when Congress casts its decisive vote on the budget reconciliation bill. Tell Congress you get the picture: that you know a vote for the budget reconciliation bill is a vote to put oil rigs in the Arctic Refuge. Demand that your representatives oppose any version of the budget bill that would open the Refuge to massive oil development and destruction!
We’ve selected four photos that capture the essence of the Arctic Refuge. O ... read more No New Coastal Drilling! 19 y
Federal judge blocks new oil drilling off the California coast!
August 13, 2005 latimes.com : California
Judge Bars New Coastal Oil Drilling
A federal government plan to extend offshore leases is put on hold pending a wider environmental study that could take years.
By Kenneth R. Weiss, Times Staff Writer
A federal judge effectively blocked new oil drilling off the California coast, ordering federal officials not to allow exploratory wells or other activity until they conduct a more extensive study of the environmental risks — a process that could take years.
The federal government wants to extend leases on 36 offshore tracts between Oxn ... read more |