Category Archives: ALPHA

Nestlé doesn’t want you to know how much water it’s bottling from the California desert

by CarolEllington Posted on July 15, 2014

Nestlé doesn’t want you to know how much water it’s bottling from the California desert

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Nestlé may bring smiles to the faces of children across America through cookies and chocolate milk. But when it comes to water, the company starts to look a little less wholesome. Amid California’s historically grim drought, Nestlé is sucking up an undisclosed amount of precious groundwater from a desert area near Palm Springs and carting it off in plastic bottles for its Arrowhead and Pure Life brands.

The Desert Sun reports that because Nestlé’s water plant in Millard Canyon, Calif., is located on the Morongo Band of Mission Indians’ reservation, the company is exempt from reporting things like how much groundwater it’s pumping, or the water levels in its wells.

From The Desert Sun:

The plant … has been drawing water from wells alongside a spring in Millard Canyon for more than a decade. But as California’s drought deepens, some people in the area question how much water the plant is bottling and whether it’s right to sell water for profit in a desert region where springs are rare and underground aquifers have been declining.

“The reason this particular plant is of special concern is precisely because water is so scarce in the basin,” Peter Gleick, who wrote the book on bottled water, told The Desert Sun. “If you had the same bottling plant in a water-rich area, then the amount of water bottled and diverted would be a small fraction of the total water available. But this is a desert ecosystem. Surface water in the desert is exceedingly rare and has a much higher environmental value than the same amount of water somewhere else.”

Nestlé refused to let The Desert Sun in on any of its data, but defended itself via email: “We proudly conduct our business in an environmentally responsible manner that focuses on water and energy conservation,” the company said. “Our sustainable operations are specifically designed and managed to prevent adverse impacts to local area groundwater resources, particularly in light of California’s drought conditions over the past three years.”

Well, we all know that bottled water is widely known to be environmentally responsible and sustainable. Oh, wait, did I just say that? Nestlé, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!


Source
Little oversight as Nestle taps Morongo reservation water, The Desert Sun
Nestlé is bottling water straight from the heart of California’s drought, Salon

Samantha Larson is a science nerd, adventure enthusiast, and fellow at Grist. Follow her on Twitter.

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Nestlé doesn’t want you to know how much water it’s bottling from the California desert

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Corporate polluters are almost never prosecuted for their crimes

by bmsv59yp Posted on July 15, 2014

Business as usual

Corporate polluters are almost never prosecuted for their crimes

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If you committed a crime in full view of a police officer, you could expect to be arrested — particularly if you persisted in your criminality after being told to cut it out, and if your crime were hurting the people around you.

But the same is not true for those other “people” who inhabit the U.S.: corporations. Polluting companies commit their crimes with aplomb. An investigation by the Crime Report, a nonprofit focused on criminal justice issues, has revealed the sickening levels of environmental criminality that BP, Mobil, Tyson Fresh, and other huge companies can sink to without fear of meaningful prosecution:

More than 64,000 facilities are currently listed in [EPA] databases as being in violation of federal environmental laws, but in most years, fewer than one-half of one percent of violations trigger criminal investigations, according to EPA records. …

In fiscal year 2013, the EPA’s Criminal Enforcement Division launched 297 investigations. In 2012, 320 investigations were opened; the total has steadily decreased since 2001.

In response to questions emailed to the EPA, Jennifer Colaizzi, an agency spokesperson, said the decline in cases is due to a decision to focus on “high impact cases,” as well as financial strains.

“The reality of budget cuts and staffing reductions make hard choices necessary across the board,” Colaizzi said.

With just 38 prosecutors manning the DOJ’s Environmental Crimes Section and 200 agents in the EPA’s Criminal Enforcement Division, monitoring cases across the country, the federal government has limited capacity to pursue many of America’s worst environmental offenders.

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in Appalachia, where a seemingly endless parade of civil settlements and consent decrees has done little to abate a history of environmental malfeasance.

The group compiled a database and map that let you see what harm polluters are doing in your neighborhood, in full view of authorities. Click here to check it out.


Source
Environmental Crime: The Prosecution Gap, The Crime Report

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Corporate polluters are almost never prosecuted for their crimes

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Liz Cheney scorns climate action just as much as her dad

by AntonieGarrard Posted on July 15, 2014

Like father, like daughter

Liz Cheney scorns climate action just as much as her dad

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Reuters/Ruffin Prevost |

spirit of america

Darth Vader and his Sith apprentice — a.k.a. Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz — are totally in synch about climate change. Here’s how they responded to a question on the topic during a conversation with Politico’s Mike Allen on Monday:

Mike Allen: Here’s a question from Felix Dodds. What should the Republican Party do about climate change?

Dick Cheney: Liz?

Liz Cheney: Nothing. [Scornful guffaw.] I mean … [Shrug.] Look, I think that what’s happening now with respect to this president and this EPA and using something like climate change as an excuse to kill the coal industry nationwide — and that’s exactly what they’re doing. They’ve been open about it. They even admit that the emissions from coal aren’t actually causing any kind of a heating of the planet. But this is an opportunity to go in, and they’re killing coal. You know, Wyoming is the leading coal-producing state in the nation. But you don’t have to be from Wyoming to understand that your electricity is gonna be directly affected by that. It is bad policy. It’s bad science. We’re seeing increasingly that it’s bad science.

And a much greater threat to us, frankly, is this massive expansion and growth of the bureaucratic state here in Washington — the EPA, the use of things like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act to go directly at people’s private property rights in a way that clearly, frankly, is unconstitutional and is a real threat to our freedom.

That Liz is following in her father’s jackbooted footsteps should come as no surprise. She demonstrated her denier cred during a failed bid for the U.S. Senate last year. She told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that “the science is just simply bogus, you know, we know that temperatures have been stable for the last 15 years.” She tweeted that Obama’s climate policy is “using phony science to kill real jobs. This is a war on coal, a war on jobs, a war on American families.” And she tweeted a photo of a snowy scene as though it were a clever rejoinder to the whole body of climate science:


Source
Playbook Lunch: Vice President Dick Cheney, Lynne Cheney, Liz Cheney, Politico
Science Denier Liz Cheney To Run For Senate In Warming-Threatened Wyoming, ClimateProgress

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on Twitter and Google+.

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Liz Cheney scorns climate action just as much as her dad

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Guess which two words can make your nonpartisan education reforms a hot potato?

by FrancesBolling Posted on July 15, 2014

Guess which two words can make your nonpartisan education reforms a hot potato?

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Podoc

Depending on who you’re talking to, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)– the first major national recommendations for teaching science to be made since 1996 — either painfully water down the presentation of climate-change information or attempt to brainwash our nation’s youth into believing climate change is real.

The backlash to the NGSS began last year, but now, we also have the backlash to the backlash — an effort by the Union of Concerned Scientists, and others, to frame science education as a civil rights issue and mobilize a grassroots movement around the idea of a Climate Students Bill of Rights. The idea is to ensure that the new standards actually wind up getting taught.

If you’re the kind of person who likes geeking out over curricula, you’ll find the NGSS’s website fascinating. How do we teach climate change? It’s such an awkward thing to explain to children, who have not caused the problem and have yet to have a chance to help make it better. Or worse, for that matter.

The standards spell it out, grade by grade. Kindergartners  will learn that “Things that people do to live comfortably can affect the world around them. But they can make choices that reduce their impacts on the land, water, air, and other living things.” High schoolers will learn that “All forms of energy production and other resource extraction have associated economic, social, environmental, and geopolitical costs and risks as well as benefits. New technologies and social regulations can change the balance of these factors. “

It’s up to the states to adopt new educational standards like this. When the feds want to get new educational standards approved, they can pressure states into signing by attaching federal funds to the deal. Because the NGSS standards were developed by a smorgasbord of scientific organizations and the states themselves — or 26 of them, anyway — that financial incentive doesn’t exist. Instead, there’s the motivation that comes from so many states having participated in the process, as well as fears of America’s waning scientific standing.

Attempts to block the NGSS have taken several forms. In Wyoming, state legislators added a last-minute footnote to its state budget that banned the use of any public funds to adopt the new science standards, which effectively removed them from the public school system. In Oklahoma, a group of lawmakers tried to repeal its NGSS-based science standards, but were blocked by the state’s education department, which managed to get the governor to sign off on them.  The NGSS have been adopted by 11 states so far, including California, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Rhode Island, Vermont, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington, plus the District of Columbia, though Kansas promptly got sued over it.

I grew up in Michigan, in a suburban community outside of Detroit that was a melting pot of religions, all of which seemed to have objections to scientific education. In general, teachers steered clear of anything more controversial than photosynthesis. Outside of school, I took every chance I could get to (a) read about dinosaurs/space shuttles/stalactites and (b) wish I was a dinosaur/space shuttle/stalactite.

For all that I loved science, it took me years to learn the really important stuff: how to wade through what people want to believe — and what you want to believe — to figure out what can be empirically proven. Here’s hoping that these new standards will help students get to the same place.

Heather Smith (on Twitter, @strangerworks) is interested in the various ways that humans try to save the environment: past, present, and future.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

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Guess which two words can make your nonpartisan education reforms a hot potato?

Posted in ALPHA, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, ONA, oven, solar, solar panels, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Guess which two words can make your nonpartisan education reforms a hot potato?

U.S. tariffs on Chinese solar panels break trade rules, WTO says

by ElyseOgren Posted on July 15, 2014

U.S. tariffs on Chinese solar panels break trade rules, WTO says

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When it comes to global trade in solar panels and components, the U.S. trade representative wants to have his suncake and eat it too. Even as the trade rep has been hauling India before the World Trade Organization, complaining that the country’s requirements for domestically produced solar panels violate global trade rules, the U.S. has been imposing new duties on panels imported from China and Taiwan. By some estimates, the U.S. duties could increase solar module costs in the country by 14 percent.

On Monday, WTO judges who were mulling China’s complaint against the U.S. over its duties on solar panels and steel ruled in favor of — you guessed it — more world trade. Reuters reports:

In the $7.2 billion Chinese case, the panel found that Washington had overstepped the mark in justifying the so-called countervailing duties it imposed as a response to alleged subsidies to exporting firms by China’s government. …

And it told the United States it should adapt its measures to bring them into line with the WTO’s agreement on subsidies and countervailing measures.

The Coalition for Affordable Energy, a trade group, cheered the ruling. It primarily represents solar panel installers, not solar panel manufacturers, so it supports lower-cost panels — regardless of where they are made. “Today’s WTO announcement and the broader trade dispute should prompt the Obama Administration to reconsider the wisdom of additional solar tariffs,” CASE President Jigar Shah said in a press statement.

Trade Representative Michael Froman’s office said it “will evaluate all options to ensure that U.S. remedies against unfair subsidies remain strong and effective.” In other words, it is likely to appeal the ruling — something that could help keep the tariffs in place for at least another six to 12 months.

Monday’s ruling was unrelated to the U.S. complaint against domestic manufacturing rules imposed under India’s burgeoning solar panel program – a program that appears set to grow even more under the country’s new leader. Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently announced that taxes on coal would be increased to help fund a clean-energy revolution. But the ruling does not bode well for Indian factories that hope to continue manufacturing the panels that are being used in that revolution.


Source
WTO faults U.S. over duties on Chinese, Indian steel goods, Reuters

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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U.S. tariffs on Chinese solar panels break trade rules, WTO says

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America’s largest reservoir is hitting new record lows every day

by LatoshaGood Posted on July 14, 2014

dude, where’s my water?

America’s largest reservoir is hitting new record lows every day

By

rjcox

The drought that’s afflicting much of the American West has hoovered out a record-breaking amount of water from the reservoir that’s held in place by the Hoover Dam.

Water levels in Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, have fallen to a point not seen since the reservoir was created during the 1930s to store water from the Colorado River. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the surface of the reservoir dipped below 1,082 feet above sea level last week:

The past 15 years have been especially hard on the nation’s largest man-made reservoir. Lake Mead has seen its surface drop by more than 130 feet amid stubborn drought in the mountains that feed the Colorado River. The unusually dry conditions have exacerbated a fundamental math problem for the river, which now sustains 30 million people and several billion dollars worth of farm production across the West but has been over-appropriated since before Hoover Dam was built.

Andy Ameigeiras and two of his friends spent Wednesday night and Thursday morning hooking carp, catfish and stripers from the rocky shore of Echo Bay. He said the water had “easily” dropped three to five feet since the last time they fished there, just four weeks ago.

“I walked out there and I wasn’t sure I was in the right spot,” the Las Vegas man said. “It’s definitely startling to see how far it’s dropping.”

The latest low water mark comes less than four years after the previous record of 1,081.85 was set on Nov. 27, 2010.

Experts expect the water level to continue to fall during the coming weeks. Because the ways we’re using water in the American West during a widespread drought are simply unsustainable.


Source
Lake Mead sinks to a record low, Las Vegas Review-Journal

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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America’s largest reservoir is hitting new record lows every day

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Another court victory for EPA — this time on mountaintop-removal rules

by IrvingHerndon Posted on July 14, 2014

Another court victory for EPA — this time on mountaintop-removal rules

By

Nicholas A. Tonelli

Blowing up mountains so that their coal-filled bellies can be stripped of their climate-changing innards doesn’t just ruin Southern Appalachian forests. It also poisons the region’s streams, as fragments of rock and soil previously known as mountaintops get dumped into valleys. A government-led study published two weeks ago concluded that this pollution is poisoning waterways, leading to “fewer species, lower abundances, and less biomass.”

Concern about just this kind of water pollution is why the EPA stepped in five years ago using its Clean Water Act mandate to boost environmental oversight of mountaintop-removal mining, creating a joint review process with the Army Corps of Engineers to help that agency assess mining proposals under the Mining Control and Reclamation Act.

The EPA can’t really do anything these days without the attorneys of polluters and the states that they pollute crying foul in court about “agency overreach.” So it was with the EPA’s 2009 “Enhanced Coordination Process.” The National Mining Association, West Virginia, and Kentucky filed suit, and a federal court sided with them. But on Friday, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed that decision, issuing a 3-0 ruling in favor of the EPA. The Charleston Gazette reports:

In a significant victory for the Obama administration’s coal policies, a federal appeals court on Friday upheld U.S. Environmental Protection Agency initiatives aimed at reducing water pollution from mountaintop removal mining operations. …

“The EPA did its job when it directed its staff to finally follow the law and science, and start protecting Appalachian waters and communities from mountaintop removal mining, which is associated with higher cancer, birth defects and early death for people living nearby,” said Emma Cheuse, an attorney with Earthjustice, which represented citizen groups who sided with the EPA in the case. “The coal industry continually fights for free rein to blow up mountains and dump waste all over Appalachia, and we’re glad to see clean water and healthy communities triumph today.” …

Coalfield elected officials responded with statements harshly criticizing the EPA and the court ruling, and promising legislation that would try to block the EPA from more closely scrutinizing mining operations.

The trade association and states also claimed in their lawsuit that the EPA erred in 2011 when it issued recommendations regarding the need for greater oversight by state and federal staff of mining permits that could affect salinity levels in rivers. The appeals court slapped them down on this point as well.


Source
Temporal changes in taxonomic and functional diversity of fish assemblages downstream from mountaintop mining, Freshwater Science
Appeals court upholds EPA’s mountaintop removal crackdown, The Charleston Gazette

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Another court victory for EPA — this time on mountaintop-removal rules

Posted in ALPHA, Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Wiley | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Another court victory for EPA — this time on mountaintop-removal rules

Oklahoma hit by eight earthquakes in two days. Is the fracking industry to blame?

by RamiroGeoghegan Posted on July 14, 2014

Oklahoma hit by eight earthquakes in two days. Is the fracking industry to blame?

By

Shutterstock / Anthony Butler

The eight earthquakes that occurred in Oklahoma over the past couple of days may be yet another side effect the U.S.’s insidious fracking boom.

The quakes hit between Saturday morning and early Monday morning, most of them small enough that people didn’t realize the ground was shaking beneath them (they ranged from 2.6 to 4.3 on the Richter scale). But they’re part of a broader trend of increased seismic activity in the heartland over the last few years, a trend that correlates with the growth of fracking. As the L.A. Times reports, Oklahoma experienced 109 tremblors measuring 3.0 or greater in 2013, more than 5,000 percent above normal.

Fracking itself isn’t thought to blame, but the disposal of fracking wastewater might be. Scientists have found that pumping the wastewater from fracking operations into wells likely triggers earthquakes because it messes with ground pressure, especially as those wells become more full. Like the wastewater well in Youngstown, Ohio, that triggered 167 earthquakes during a single year of operation. The biggest one, a sizable 5.7, happened the day after the Ohio Department of Natural Resources finally stepped in to shut the well down.

Jonathan Hallmark, police chief in Langston, Okla., which was hit by the biggest of this recent batch of quakes, told the L.A. Times that they never use to experience tremblors like these. Unless Oklahoma decides to crack down on fracking, the state’s residents might have to get used to them.


Source
USGS: 7 small earthquakes shake central Oklahoma, The Associated Press
At least 4 earthquakes, including a 4.3, strike central Oklahoma, Los Angeles Times
8 small earthquakes shake Oklahoma as fracking critics grumble, CBS News

Samantha Larson is a science nerd, adventure enthusiast, and fellow at Grist. Follow her on Twitter.

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Oklahoma hit by eight earthquakes in two days. Is the fracking industry to blame?

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Poor Sanitation in India May Afflict Well-Fed Children With Malnutrition

by Myrna Posted on July 14, 2014

Many children in India are exposed to a bacterial brew from human waste that may make it impossible for food alone to cure their malnutrition. View original article: Poor Sanitation in India May Afflict Well-Fed Children With Malnutrition Related ArticlesDot Earth Blog: Population by the Numbers: Unplanned PregnanciesSummer School for AnchoviesOpinion: A Pipeline Threatens Our Family Land

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Poor Sanitation in India May Afflict Well-Fed Children With Malnutrition

Posted in alo, ALPHA, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, Monterey, ONA, solar, solar power, The Atlantic, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Poor Sanitation in India May Afflict Well-Fed Children With Malnutrition

Inside Asia: Australian Winemakers Respond to Climate Shift

by Myrna Posted on July 14, 2014

Vintners are expanding operations to the island of Tasmania, where temperatures are cooler, out of fear that traditional growing regions are becoming too hot. Read More – Inside Asia: Australian Winemakers Respond to Climate Shift Related ArticlesStudy of Organic Crops Finds Fewer Pesticides and More AntioxidantsOpinion: A Pipeline Threatens Our Family LandEquity Firm Restores Louisiana Marshland to Earn Credits It Can Sell

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Inside Asia: Australian Winemakers Respond to Climate Shift

Posted in alo, ALPHA, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, Monterey, ONA, organic, Paradise, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Inside Asia: Australian Winemakers Respond to Climate Shift