‘Scientists previously mapped huge floating trash patches in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, but now a husband-wife team researching plastic garbage in the Indian Ocean suggest a new and dire view. “The world’s oceans are covered with a thin plastic soup,” says Anna Cummins, cofounder of 5 Gyres Institute.’
via New garbage patch discovered in Indian Ocean – Yahoo! News.
‘…Chemical flame retardants have been on the market since the 1970s, and are used in everything from computers to upholstery, including nursing pillows, cribs, strollers and fleece baby carriers. In the past 10 years, there’s been an explosion of evidence that the most widely used kind, called PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), do more harm than good — especially when used in baby products, which have little chance of bursting into flames.’
via The poison crib: When protective chemicals harm – Children – Salon.com.
Troubling talk by Jeremy Jackson, coral reef ecologist about the widespread trouble in the oceans.
Concluding excerpt:
“So the question is, how are we all going to respond to this? We can do all sorts of things to fix it, but in the final analysis the thing we really need to fix is ourselves. It’s not about the fish, it’s not about the pollution, it’s not about the climate change. It’s about us and our greed, and our need for growth, and our inability to image a world which is different from the selfish world we live in today.”
“So the question is will we respond to this or not? I would say that the future of life and the dignity of human beings depends on our doing that.”
‘WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama plans to propose a tripling of government loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors to more than $54 billion, an administration official said on Friday, a move sure to win over some Republican lawmakers who want more nuclear power to be part of climate change legislation.’
‘UNIONTOWN, Ala. — Almost every day, a train pulls into a rail yard in rural Alabama, hauling 8,500 tons of a disaster that occurred 350 miles away to a final resting place, the Arrowhead Landfill here in Perry County, which is very poor and almost 70 percent black.’
‘LOS ANGELES Reuters – Marine scientists from California are venturing this week to the middle of the North Pacific for a study of plastic debris accumulating across hundreds of miles km of open sea dubbed the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”‘
via Scientists study huge plastic patch in Pacific | Reuters.
‘As we’ve detailed, nuclear waste is an expensive problem in the United States. The government is liable to utilities for billions of dollars, due to a failure to produce a central, national location for storing waste.’
‘WASHINGTON Reuters – The Obama administration said Thursday it wanted to officially terminate the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage waste site..’
via Obama budget seeks end to Yucca nuclear waste dump | Green Business | Reuters.
“DUANJIALING, China — Less than a year ago, officials were pressing mines and factories along this limestone belt of northern China to shut down or move away to clear the air of dust and smog for the Beijing Olympics.
Now, amid the global economic downturn, priorities have shifted.
Cumbersome environmental reviews have been accelerated, state bank loans are flowing freely again and workers are welding the grinding mills of Sanhe Yongsheng Cement, one of the new cement plants under construction not far from China’s capital.”
The article goes on to mention rapid approval of projects:
“In the rush to invest $585 billion in stimulus spending and revive flagging industrial production, China has at least temporarily backpedaled on some environmental restraints imposed, though with limited impact, during the country’s long boom.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection, citing the urgency of fighting the downturn, adopted a new “green passage” policy that speeds approval of industrial projects. In one three-day stretch late last year, it gave the green light to 93 new investment plans valued at $38 billion.”
via Environmental Gains Lose Priority in China Amid Downturn – NYTimes.com.
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday formally declared carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases to be pollutants that threaten public health and welfare, setting in motion a process that for the first time in the United States will regulate the gases blamed for global warming.
via E.P.A. to Clear the Way for Regulation of Warming Gases – NYTimes.com.
the essential eco-commentaries
