Tag Archives: blue marble

Is BPA Making Girls Obese?

by Lou Bovee Posted on June 14, 2013

Mother Jones

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A chemical common in food packaging—Bisphenol-A (BPA)—has for years been scrutinized for potential links to reproductive problems, heart disease, cancer, and even anxiety. And now new research suggests BPA, which leeches out from things like aluminum cans, drink straws, plastic packaging, and even cashier’s receipts, could increase the risk for obesity in preteen girls.

A Kaiser Permanente study, published this week in PLOS ONE, examined obesity and BPA levels in a group of Chinese school children. While most of the kids were not significantly effected by the chemical, 9-12 year-old girls with high BPA levels in their urine were found to be twice as likely to be obese than other girls their age. In girls with especially high levels (more than 10 micrograms per liter) the risk of obesity was five times as great.

This isn’t the first study to reveal BPA’s particular effect on girls. My colleague Jaeah Lee explored how girls exposed to the chemical as fetuses were more likely to be anxious and depressed than boys, and another study on rhesus monkeys revealed how it messes with the reproductive system. So why are women more susceptible to the chemical?

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Maine Is Second State to Pass GMO Labeling Law

by Aaron Dempsey Posted on June 14, 2013

Mother Jones

Just nine days after Connecticut passed its genetically-engineered food labeling law, Maine lawmakers approved their own legislation requiring food manufacturers to reveal genetically engineered ingredients on products’ packaging. The governors in both New England states are expected to sign the bills into law soon.

Last week, Paul Towers, a spokesman for the Pesticide Action Network, described Connecticut’s bill as “important” but also “cautious.” Both it and the Maine bill include stipulations requiring other states—including at least one border state—to pass their own GMO labeling laws before they go into effect—so Maine’s bill, for example, does nothing unless New Hampshire and a few other states pass similar bills. Still, members of the Right To Know movement consider the bills a victory—especially after last November’s narrow defeat of California’s GMO labeling bill Prop. 37.

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Maine Is Second State to Pass GMO Labeling Law

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Bloomberg’s Sweeping Plan To Protect New York From the Next Sandy

by Bernadine Posted on June 13, 2013

Mother Jones

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A quarter of New York City could be a flood zone by 2050, according to a new report commissioned by the Bloomberg administration. On Tuesday, Bloomberg laid out an accompanying $20 billion plan to fortify the city against future disasters brought on by climate change.

Many of the Bloomberg administration’s recommendations would take years to carry out, far longer his remaining 11 months of tenure as mayor. The 440 page plan covers everything from the protecting coastline with levees to improving emergency bus routes. Neighborhood by neighborhood, it lists recommendations for the city: building dunes to help fortify the Rockaways, offshore breakwaters to temper big waves (and provide habitats for oysters) in Staten Island, and a new, above sea-level neighborhood dubbed “Seaport City” in southeast Manhattan, among others. Bloomberg estimates that $15 billion of the $20 billion in funds can come from already existing city and federal money, and said that “we’ll press the Federal government to cover as much of the remaining costs as possible.”

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Bloomberg’s Sweeping Plan To Protect New York From the Next Sandy

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What Is a Derecho, Anyway?

by hanhuogekennog Posted on June 13, 2013

Mother Jones

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You’ve probably heard that a massive system of storms is currently bearing down on the Midwest and expected to reach the mid-Atlantic on Thursday. Meteorologists are warning that the storms may turn into derechos, or “land hurricanes.” Almost 75 million people are in the path of the storms, and forecasters believe that conditions are favorable for one or more derechos this week. So what can we expect from these intense storms?

What is a derecho?

According to NOAA, a derecho is a “widespread, long-lived windstorm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms.” In order for a weather event to be classified as a derecho, the wind damage zone must extend more than 240 miles and include wind gusts of at least 58 miles per hour. In “super” derechos, wind gusts can top 100 miles per hour. “You can think of a derecho as a tropical cyclone over land,” NOAA research meteorologist Ken Pryor told Discovery Magazine. “The impacts are very similar. There are damaging winds that cover a significant area.” The storms are known to occur frequently at night, and they often bring hail, flooding, and tornadoes.

Is it like a tornado?

Not exactly. The two types of storms can occur in the same system, but the damage of a derecho is directed along a fairly straight path and tornadoes are more isolated events. “A tornado, when it does occur, may be on the magnitude of a mile or two wide; a derecho could go for hundreds of miles producing significant damage,” Jim Keeney, weather program manager at the national weather service’s office in Kansas City, Miss., told CBS.

What causes it?

Derechos are associated with showers and thunderstorms where there are strong outflow winds that “move preferentially in one direction,” and are the products of downbursts, according to NOAA. “Imagine taking a water balloon and dropping it, where you see the balloon break and splatter on the ground. That’s basically how a downburst works,” Ken Pryor told NBC News. “And you can think of a derecho as a large cluster of those downbursts all happening simultaneously.”

NOAA

When and where do they usually occur?

They are most common in late spring and summer with more than 75 percent occurring between April and August. Check out this handy NOAA map below to see how frequently they hit different regions:

NOAA

When was the last one?

A particularly destructive derecho causing $1 billion in damage hit a 700 mile swath between the Ohio Valley and the mid Atlantic last June. FIVE million people from Chicago to the mid Atlantic Coast lost power, and 22 were killed. NOAA has documented 26 noteworthy derechos since the late 1960s. Below is a diagram of one that hit Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas in 2001:

Area affected by the May 27-28, 2001 derecho (outlined in blue). Curved purple lines represent the approximate locations of the gust front at three-hourly intervals. “+” symbols indicate the locations of wind damage or wind gusts (measured or estimated) above severe limits (58 mph or greater). Red dots and lines denote tornadoes. NOAA

Is climate change involved?

According to NOAA, “Some of the most intense summer derechos, especially those of the progressive type, occur on the fringes of extreme heat waves.” After last year’s deadly derecho, some wondered if climate change caused or intensified it:

“Since climate change can boost the odds of major heat waves such as this one, and the extreme heat contributed to the severe weather, it’s plausible—albeit rather speculative at this point—that climate change played some sort of role in the derecho event. However, it will require rigorous scientific analysis to determine whether this may have been the case.”

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What Is a Derecho, Anyway?

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Slicing Open Stalagmites to Reveal Climate Secrets

by Mstyslava7ju Posted on June 6, 2013

Mother Jones

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If you’ve ever visited a cave, you know the rules: Stay on the path, and keep your greasy paws off the formations. So Stacy Carolin was a bit taken aback the first time she headed into a cave not as a tourist, but as a scientist, and took a step off the beaten path. “I was a city girl back then,” she recalls. “It was very muddy and slippery… and also completely pitch black.” Not exactly the setting you’d expect for cutting-edge climate change research.

A few years later, Carolin, a PhD student at Georgia Tech, is breaking ground in the field of paleoclimatology, the study of ancient climates, using an unconventional but increasingly prevalent tool: “speleothems,” a catch-all term for cave formations that includes stalagmites (remember the mnemonic: those that “mite” reach the ceiling from the floor) and stalactites (those that hold “tite” to the ceiling).

In a study released today in the journal Science, Carolin and her colleagues outline 100,000-year-old rainfall conditions in Borneo, mapped from chemical clues in cave formations there. Like most historic climate reconstructions, the goal is to compile real-life data against which to test predictive models; if scientists know how much rainfall there was in the tropics in the past, they can see how well their models are able to replicate those conditions, and tweak accordingly. But the most commonly-used “proxies” for ancient climates, including tree rings and ice cores, are notoriously inadequate in the tropics, leaving holes in scientists’ geographic picture of the past and making it difficult to measure historic changes in tropical weather systems, like monsoons, which can themselves have major impacts on global climate.

Deep inside caves in Mexico, Southeast Asia, China, and other limestone-rich locales worldwide, scientists have found rich troves of data in speleothems. Researchers look for formations that have already fallen over or broken off, so as not to damage the cave, haul these back to the lab, slice them open (“like a hot dog,” Carolin says), and study the ancient atoms within to discover how old they are and how much rainfall there was at different points in their past (speleothems form when rainwater drips through the limestone, picking up acid and minerals that pile up in the cave).

Tim McDonnell

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Will Connecticut lead the way on GMO labeling?

by SuzanneBl Posted on June 5, 2013

Mother Jones

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On June 3, the Connecticut legislature passed a bipartisan GMO labeling bill, making it the first state to require food manufacturers to reveal whether their products include genetically engineered ingredients. The bill passed both chambers by a landslide, and right-to-know activists have declared it a major victory. But the bill comes with a catch. Before it goes into effect, similar legislation must be adopted in at least four other states, including one that borders Connecticut, and those states must have an aggregate population of at least 20 million residents.

In other words, the Nutmeg State will continue to do nothing on GMOs until New York, Massachusetts or Rhode Island and some combination of other states also decide to take on Big Ag and Big Biotech. This trigger clause was meant to protect Connecticut businesses from being put at a competitive disadvantage and to keep the state from “going it alone,” says Paul Towers of Pesticide Action Network. Towers called it “a cautious but important step.”

With a population of 3.5 million, Connecticut doesn’t hold the same sway as a large population state like New York or California that, just by acting alone, could force GMO labeling nationwide. (Since so much of their product is sold in those states, if one of them passed a labeling bill, food manufacturers would most likely just label all of the products they sell in the US, for the sake of efficiency.) That’s why the biotech and food industries dropped $46 million last year against California’s Prop. 37, out-spending right-to-know supporters 5 to 1 and ultimately defeating the measure.

Even with Connecticut’s trigger clause, advocates are optimistic. Tara Cook-Littman, the head of GMO Free CT, said her group fought against the clause throughout the legislative session. But ultimately, she said, the group felt that the integrity of the bill wasn’t compromised by its inclusion. “The truth is we really think we have nothing to fear from the trigger clause,” Cook-Littman told Mother Jones. “We’re hoping that the clause will end up being a catalyst to encourage other states to join us.”

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Will Connecticut lead the way on GMO labeling?

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Democrats Call on Obama’s Budget Office to Cough Up Rules

by Burt Bollman Posted on June 5, 2013

Mother Jones

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The Senate confirmed Sylvia Matthews Burwell as the new director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at the end of April. Now Democrats in the House and Senate are calling on her to fix whatever’s been delaying all the environmental, health, and safety rules at OMB for months (and in some cases, years).

As I’ve reported here before, Obama’s OMB is a place where tough environmental and health rules go to die (or at least disappear for a really, really long time). On Wednesday, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), along with Dem Reps. Henry Waxman of California and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, wrote to Burwell asking her to cough up the rules that the lawmakers said had “languished” in OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under her predecessor:

Fourteen of the twenty rules submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have been under review at OIRA for more than 90 days; thirteen have been delayed for more than a year. One particularly egregious example of OIRA delays is EPA’s Guidance Identifying Waters Protected by the Clean Water Act. This guidance would clarify regulatory jurisdiction over U.S. waters and wetlands. It is an issue that has come before the U.S. Supreme Court three times and, until the Administration finalizes this guidance, will continue to create confusion, loopholes, and inconsistency for officials at the state and local level. Despite the clear need for regulatory guidance from this Administration, EPA’s final guidance has been under review for 470 days, since February 21, 2012.
Nine of the ten Department of Energy (DOE) rules under review at OIRA have been there for more than 120 days. Important DOE energy efficiency standards, such as those for commercial walk-in coolers and freezers, commercial refrigeration equipment, and metal halide lamp fixtures have been pending at OIRA for more than a year.
Similarly, key worker safety standards have also been delayed for far too long. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) proposed rule to protect workers from cancer-causing silica dust has been at OIRA for over two years, since February 14, 2011. OSHA’s preliminary analysis indicates that the silica rule would prevent approximately 60 deaths per year from lung cancer and silicosis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 1.7 million additional workers are exposed to dangerous levels of silica every year. These workers may also face a lifetime of serious health problems that the completion of this rule could help to prevent.

As the congressmen noted, very few laws get passed in Congress these days. That means “the public is depending on the federal agencies to protect public health and welfare,” they wrote.

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Democrats Call on Obama’s Budget Office to Cough Up Rules

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The 6 Weirdest Things Found in the EPA Warehouse

by gorso6 Posted on June 4, 2013

Mother Jones

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The Environmental Protection Agency’s Inspector General released a report on Monday on the agency’s Landover, Maryland warehouse. The 70,000-square-foot facility is used to store inventory from the EPA’s Washington headquarters, but what the inspectors found basically sounds like a cross between a frat house and your grandma’s attic.

Here are the six weirdest things discovered in the warehouse:

multiple “unauthorized personal spaces” that were “arranged so that they were out of sight of security cameras” and included televisions, refrigerators, radios, microwaves, couches, pin ups, clothing, books, magazines and videos
two pianos
new appliances received in 2007 still in the original packaging
dirt, dust and vermin feces were “pervasive,” and several items were described as “rotting and potentially hazardous”
an exercise space that included weights, machines, and other exercise equipment that, unlike most of the rest of the warehouse, “appeared to be well maintained”; the report also noted that “agency steno pads were used for recording workouts”
a big box of old passports

(h/t National Journal)

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The 6 Weirdest Things Found in the EPA Warehouse

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Lautenberg Leaves Legacy on Chemical Reform

by bukaroso Posted on June 3, 2013

Mother Jones

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Frank Lautenberg, a five-term senator from New Jersey, died Monday at age 89. All over the internet, obituaries for the long-serving progressive note the issues he took up during his tenure, but one that often goes unnoticed is his work to overhaul chemical safety rules. For years, Lautenberg was the leading voice in the effort to reform the Toxic Substance Control Act, or TSCA, a 37-year-old law governing tens of thousands of chemicals.

Less than two weeks ago, Lautenberg unveiled a bipartisan reform bill that would have made some significant changes to the outdated—and many would say, dangerous—chemical rules. The bill was criticized by many in the environmental group as being too weak, especially as compared to bills that Lautenberg had introduced independently in the past. Still, chemical reform will be a legacy issue for Lautenberg.

“He was the person who really started the national conversation on reforming our chemical policies,” said Andy Igrejas, executive director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, a coalition public health, environment, business and labor groups working on TSCA reform. “He’s been a real stalwart, a champion.” Despite being in poor health, Lautenberg had continued working on the bill he released in May. “Even as late as last week he was down in DC pushing it forward, crafting it, trying to get bipartisan support,” said Igrejas.

“He wasn’t someone who scared easily,” Igrejas continued. “A lot of politicians want to do the right thing, but in the face of a major lobbying effort by big money interests, they fold. He had the courage to really stick with big issues.”

Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, also lauded his past work on chemicals: “Perhaps his most enduring achievement was to help inform and protect the public from the harm of toxic chemicals, including creating the nation’s toxic right-to-know law, establishing the US Chemical Safety Board and pushing for greater security at chemical plants.”

Lautenberg is also remember for his work on other public health issues, such as alcohol and tobacco.

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Lautenberg Leaves Legacy on Chemical Reform

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British Columbia Kills West Coast Pipeline Plan

by Aale Harry Posted on May 31, 2013

Mother Jones

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While we’ve been having a big fight over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline down here in the US, Canada has also been debating a massive pipeline for exporting tar sands oil, the Northern Gateway. And on Friday, the government of British Columbia put the kibosh on that whole idea.

BC’s environment minister said Friday that Enbridge, the company seeking to build the pipeline, had not adequately answered the government’s questions about the project, and that there were still outstanding concerns about spill prevention and response. The CBC reports:

“British Columbia thoroughly reviewed all of the evidence and submissions made to the panel and asked substantive questions about the project, including its route, spill response capacity and financial structure to handle any incidents,” said Environment Minister Terry Lake.
“Our questions were not satisfactorily answered during these hearings.”

The Northern Gateway would have run from the heart of the tar sands in Alberta, through British Columbia, and to an export terminal in Kitimat. Anti-pipeline activists in the US are cheering BC’s Gateway decision as a win against tar sands development. 350.org founder Bill McKibben sent around a statement shortly after the announcement:

For years the tar sands promoters have said: ‘if we don’t build Keystone XL the tar sands will get out some other way.’ British Columbians just slammed the door on the most obvious other way, so now it’s up to President Obama. If he approves Keystone XL he bails out the Koch Brothers and other tar sands investors; if he rejects the pipeline, then an awful lot of that crude is going to stay in the ground where it belongs.

The BC government was quick to say, however, that this “is not a rejection of heavy-oil projects” in general—keeping open the possibility for another proposed pipeline, Kinder Morgan (which we also talked about here). Nevertheless, it certainly makes plans to export tar sands oil more complicated.

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British Columbia Kills West Coast Pipeline Plan

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