Link to original:
Today’s DDT? Scientists Declare Bee-Killing Pesticides Must Be Banned
Mother Jones
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>
The 2014 elections are awash in dark money—and it’s only getting worse. The Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity alone plans to spend $125 million or more on this year’s elections. In response, Senate Democrats are ratcheting up their efforts to put anonymous political spending in the headlines. On Tuesday, a group of Democrats introduced a rebooted version of the DISCLOSE Act, a bill intended to cast light on political dark money, which spiked from $69 million in 2008 to $310 million in 2012.
Cosponsored by 50 Democrats in the Senate, the DISCLOSE Act of 2014 would cover election spending by corporations, labor unions, super-PACs, and, most importantly, politically active nonprofits (like Americans for Prosperity or the Democrat-aligned Patriot Majority). Disclosing dark money is a tricky issue—here’s how new bill would attempt to do it.
Say you run an anonymously funded nonprofit group planning to spend money on the 2014 midterms. Under this bill, after spending your first $10,000 on elections, you’d have to disclose that spending within 24 hours to the Federal Election Commission. You’d then need to disclose each additional $10,000 in election spending—again within 24 hours. Right now, spending by nonprofit groups can occur with little or no disclosure, so this would give reporters, parties, campaigns, and the public much more up-to-date information on who’s spending money where.
What about the donors funding these groups? The new DISCLOSE Act would require groups covered by the bill to reveal the source of donations of $10,000 or more. That’s no sweat for super-PACs, which already disclose their donors. But it’s a huge deal for politically active nonprofits, those groups organized under the 501(c)(4) section of the tax code. Part of the appeal of these nonprofits is the anonymity they afford their funders: A donor can give $1 million or $10 million or $100 million without anyone being the wiser. (The bill does allow for groups to use separate bank accounts—one to fund election spending, another to fund issue advocacy—to give anonymity to donors who wish to support non-political work.)
The bill also targets the use of pass-throughs and shell corporations to evade disclosure rules, mandating that groups that receive such donations name the origin of the money. We’ve seen a few notable instances of this. In 2011, a mysterious company called W Spann LLC gave $1 million to the pro-Romney super-PAC Restore Our Future—then it dissolved. The true donor’s identity remained hidden until pressure from Democrats and the media prompted Ed Conard, a former partner of Romney’s at Bain Capital, to reveal that he authorized the W Spann donation. In late 2012, the Washington Post reported that Cancer Treatment Centers of America founder Richard Stephenson and his family routed $12 million in donations to the tea-party group FreedomWorks through two Tennessee companies. Until the Post‘s story, the true source of the $12 million was unknown.
Back to the new DISCLOSE Act. In a nutshell it calls for: More information on campaign spending, disclosed more quickly. More disclosure of previously hidden big donors—liberal and conservative and centrist—influencing elections. And no shell games to avoid the sunlight.
The bad news: The new DISCLOSE Act is likely going nowhere. Senate Republicans, rallied by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), have blocked earlier iterations of the DISCLOSE Act since 2010. McConnell, currently a foe of campaign finance limits, will no doubt fight the new legislation. It is almost guaranteed the bill will not secure the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.
In unveiling the new DISCLOSE Act, Senate Democrats highlighted McConnell’s past support for greater disclosure of election spending. In 1987, McConnell introduced a resolution to allow Congress to set limits on outside spending intended to elect or defeat a candidate for federal office; he said the measure “would restrict the power of special interest PACs, stop the flow of all soft money, keep wealthy individuals from buying public office.” In 1997, McConnell called for “expedited” public disclosure of campaign giving and spending. And in 2000, on the Senate floor, he said, “Virtually everybody in the Senate is in favor of enhanced disclosure, greater disclosure, that’s really hardly a controversial subject.”
View original:
Senate Democrats Re-up Their Dark-Money Disclosure Bill—and Dare GOPers to Block It
You can almost smell the changes
The millions of Americans who risk cancer every day by breathing in toxic pollution belched out by oil refineries could soon be breathing a little bit easier.
The EPA proposed overdue new rules on Thursday that would force about 150 refineries in 30 states to rein in their air pollution, and to do a better job of monitoring it. Here’s the Natural Resources Defense Council’s John Walke with an overview of the proposal:
EPA has proposed for the first time to require fenceline monitoring for carcinogenic benzene emissions around each refinery. Because much of the air pollution from refineries does not come directly from the emission stacks, a great deal of this air pollution escapes detection—and control—through leaks, flares and other emission sources. …
Along with landmark fenceline monitoring provisions, EPA has also proposed to require increased flare management at facilities. Refineries often flare off excess waste gases, leading to huge emissions of toxic air pollutants. The new standards proposed by EPA will require refineries to manage their flares at a much higher level of burn-off efficiency than they do currently, which will mean that much less toxic pollution makes it into the air. …
Finally, EPA is also proposing new emission standards for cokers located at refineries. Cokers are part of the refining process, but they involve heating up the petroleum and hydrocarbons to high temperatures, producing large amounts of toxic air pollution. The proposed coker standards will reduce toxic air pollution by 1,800 tons per year alone.
The EPA estimates that its proposed changes would reduce toxic air pollution, including emissions of benzene, toluene, and xylene, by 5,600 tons per year. Volatile organic compound emissions would be cut by more than 50,000 tons per year, and greenhouse gas pollution levels would also fall.
Which is great. It’s just a shame that Earthjustice and other environmentalists had to sue the agency two years ago to force it to produce its first proposed update to refinery rules in well over a decade.
Source
EPA Proposes to Limit Cancer-Causing Toxic Air Pollution From Petroleum Refineries, Natural Resources Defense Council
EPA Proposes Updates to Emissions Standards for Refineries to Protect Nearby Neighborhoods/Proposed steps will protect public health and improve air quality, EPA
EPA proposes stricter emission standards for oil refineries following lawsuit, The Associated Press
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.
Read more:
,
Jump to original:
READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS
A Doctor’s All-Natural, No-Pill Prescription for Better Health and Longer Life
Jordan Metzl & Andrew Heffernan
Genre: Health & Fitness
Price: $10.99
Publish Date: December 10, 2013
Publisher: Rodale
Seller: Rodale Inc.
What if there were a drug to treat every illness, across all body systems, proven potent against heart disease, depression, arthritis, PMS and erectile dysfunction — even in chronic diseases such as asthma, dementia, and certain types of cancer? What if it had no side effects, was completely free, readily available, and worked for everyone ? Every single person who took it decreased her risk of premature death and raised his quality of life. Would you want it? In a healthcare system that spends 17% of GDP, roughly $2.7 trillion, mostly on disease treatment, how do we save money and prevent illness? By increasing the use of the world's most effective preventive medicine: exercise . Jordan D. Metzl, MD, explains how everyone can maximize their daily dose in his groundbreaking new book, The Exercise Cure . In The Exercise Cure , Dr. Metzl—nationally renowned sports medicine physician—offers malady-specific and well-researched exercise prescriptions to help readers stay healthy, heal disease, drop pounds, increase longevity, and transform their lives. Today's medical system is largely focused on fixing rather than preventing problems, and many treatments carry significant side effects. Cholesterol-lowering drugs are linked to frequent muscle and joint problems, anti-hypertensive drugs like Beta-blockers cause headaches and diminished energy, and Prozac and other popular anti-depressant medications carry multiple consequences including sexual dysfunction. Dr. Metzl knows that exercise is inexpensive, powerful medicine that has benefits in prevention and treatment of disease without disturbing side effects. Even in older adults, daily exercise has been found to prevent dementia by generating neuron development in the hippocampus, the memory center of the brain. Combining the latest data and his proven motivational skills, Dr. Metzl addresses the common maladies troubling millions. He discusses our cardiovascular, pulmonary, metabolic, musculoskeletal, neurologic, reproductive, and endocrinologic body systems, with special sections on sleep problems and cancer prevention, presenting the science behind the role of exercise as medicine. Then, he details fun, fat-torching, life-prolonging workouts that can be tailored easily to any fitness level, beginner to advanced, and provides nutritional information, including meal plans for healthy eating and disease prevention, as well.
Read this article:
Photo: ReuseNYC
If you’d rather not shell out your holiday shopping dollars at the big-box stores this year, why not skip Black Friday and try hunting for great deals on Green Friday instead?
On Nov. 29, nonprofit retail locations throughout New York City will participate in ReuseNYC Green Friday — a community-oriented answer to Black Friday that focuses on supporting those in need and preventing waste through secondhand shopping.
More than 40 retail locations will take part in the event by offering a variety of sales in locations across the five boroughs.
Participating retailers include common names like Goodwill and The Salvation Army, and some you may have never heard of, such as the Arthritis Foundation Gift Shop, Cancer Care Thrift Shop, Lower East Side Ecology Center and more.
Deals range from 10 percent off to 50 percent off storewide — meaning you’ll not only score rock-bottom deals but also rest easy knowing your dollars supported causes you care about.
Click here for a map of all participating locations and more information.
Homepage Image: Flickr/Play Among Friends
earth911
More here:
A spike in the anchovy population in California’s Monterey Bay has made for exciting wildlife viewing as humpback whales, dolphins, sea lions and pelicans swarm to feed on the small fish. Read original article: Whales and Anchovies ; ;Related ArticlesMonterey Journal: With Extra Anchovies, Deluxe Whale WatchingThe Future of StormsPentagon Releases Strategy for Arctic ;
See original article:
Source:
green4us
An afternoon searching recent US patents pulls up some curious climate solutions. Forget YouTube as your go-to 3:00 pm internet distraction. For me, it’s the US patent office website. There is some seriously wild stuff being invented by your fellow citizens, not least in the area of climate change mitigation and adaptation. Here are a few of my favorite climate-related patents issued recently by the office. (I’ve added a little color to the design sketches): Golf courses are hardly known for being paragons of environmentally friendly land use. They use a massive amount of water and have been found to be net carbon emitters, mainly due to land-clearing. But—phew!—there could soon be a way to shuck that green guilt and keep on swinging. These carbon dioxide-absorbing golf balls, invented by the golf team at Nike, are intended to “reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to aid in alleviating global warming,” by enabling the ”golf ball itself to play a role in the fight against global warming.” (You can’t make this stuff up). Additionally, the Nike inventors claim this is the first time a golf ball itself has attempted to off-set carbon consumed during its manufacture. Here’s how it works: When you hit the ball, little bits of its surface layer deform and set off a chemical chain reaction that absorbs carbon dioxide as the ball flies through the air. The more times you swing, the greater the surface area exposed to the internal reactions. So, if you’re anything like me, and you need to hit the ball an embarrassing number of times, comfort yourself with the knowledge you’re doing more to save the world more than your pro golf buddies (except all my balls end up in the water). At the end of the game, according to the patent, you’ll be able to see how much carbon you’ve sequestered using a visual indicator on the side of the ball. Golfing sure beats hammering out a broad international agreement to reduce carbon. But sorry to spike your high: The inventors admit the golf ball could “at best be only carbon neutral, and is not capable of reducing the total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.” Damn. Really? (After several attempts to organize an interview with the Portland-based inventor Chia-Chyi Cheng, Nike told me the company doesn’t talk to the media about their numerous inventions or patents). Verdict: Cool science! But don’t expect President Obama to start arguing his golf days are saving the planet. We learned last month that average summer temperatures in parts of the Arctic during the past 100 years are hotter than they have been for possibly as long as 120,000 years. And the Arctic recently registered the sixth lowest summer sea ice minimum on record. Why don’t we just replace all that melting ice? That’s the idea behind this recently published patent for artificial ice. According to the filing, an ”ice” substrate would be dropped onto the surface of an ocean or a lake and left there to reflect sunlight back into the atmosphere using a 3-corner retro reflector surface (the same technology used by street signs). Meanwhile, nutrients sown on the underside would encourage algae to grow for biofuel production. Algae is a proven energy source. In February 2012, President Obama announced the Department of Energy would allocate $14 million in new funding to develop transportation fuels from algae. “It seemed like a two-fer to me,” says inventor and engineer Phillip Langhorst from St. Louis, Missouri. ”In order to solve global warming we’re going to have to do something on an insanely huge scale. And this is the only thing I’ve seen that’s big enough.” A few weeks after putting the ice on the water, a ship would come along, scrape the algae off and reapply the necessary nutrients. “I need help, obviously, to see if this is a viable scheme,” he says, although he admits most companies he approaches balk at the idea. But he argues that facing the realities and costs of big geo-engineering projects like this is becoming increasingly necessary, in lieu of putting a price on carbon: ”Pick your poison, you know,” he says. ”My goal is not so much to patent this and make a billion dollars off of it; it’s to solve the global warming issue so we all don’t have to move to Saskatchewan.” Verdict: Please, can’t we stop the real ice from melting? Imagine this scenario in the not-too-distant future: Your car has iced over in one of the many more extreme storms of a climate-changed world. It takes too long—and too much gas—to de-ice the car. Moreover, the engines in energy-efficient and electric cars mean there is less “waste heat” in the system that’s available for the purpose of traditional defrosting techniques. A new defrosting system may just become the must-have for winter drivers, according to this patent for a “windshield washer fluid heater and system,” which attempts to defrost within seconds, not minutes. It may even, according to the language of the patent, reduce “energy dependence on foreign oil.” That actually isn’t too lofty a claim when you look at the auto industry roaring back to life. Since 2009, car production has nearly doubled; in July, US car and light-truck sales ran at an annualized pace of 15.8 million, up more than a million from the previous year. Any fuel savings count. The invention passes engine heat that already exists through a new heat exchanger. Upon flicking the washer/wiper switch, washer fluid heats in a special new heater in a matter of seconds, and finally sprays out nozzles integrated into the wiper blades of the car, delivering a “continuous on-demand heated fluid deicing and cleaning action to the windshield and wiper blades.” “This is so much more effective in clearing the windshield, because a traditional system needs to warm up 30-40 pounds of windshield glass before it can get to the outside ice,” which requires a lot of energy, says Jere Lansinger, a 74-year-old retired automotive engineer and inventor. A 40-year veteran of the industry in Detroit, Lansinger used to test defrosting systems to ensure they met the federal standard for safe driving: around 30 minutes for a clear windshield. “And 30 minutes is a terribly long time when you want to get moving in the morning.” So for the last 20 years he’s been tinkering on this invention in his garage. Now the defrost time is under a minute, he says. Lansinger has commercial interest already. The invention has been bought by TSM Corporation, Michigan, and is being developed as a product called QuikTherm, which the company says is currently being tested at several North American automotive parts manufacturers. And that’s enormously gratifying for Lansinger. “Frankly it makes me feel better than any big royalties I’ll get.” Verdict: A neat fuel-efficiency measure I’ve never thought about. And nothing’s worse than de-icing your car. This might be my favorite for its simplicity: A portable power station that can be off-loaded from a trailer, unfolded, put up anywhere there’s sun or wind, and switched on. In the picture here, it’s being used to charge a car. But it can power anything it likes. “I was tickled to death,” says Lynn Miller, the inventor from Crossville, Tennessee, about the day he was granted the patent, which he’s been working on for over three years. He’s now spent over $20,000 on the idea and is looking forward to getting a prototype up and running in the new year. For Miller, it’s all about simplicity and reducing costs for the consumer. ”We’d bring it out in the morning, and in the afternoon it’s working. It’s a plug-and play-system,” he says. He also likes the idea that having one of these in the company parking lot, or by the side of the road, gives ultimate green bragging rights: ”It’s very visible, it reminds people day-in, day-out that you’re environmental.” Miller’s plan is to also set up the portable power stations at schools and colleges to demonstrate the benefits of renewable energy. ”It’s not just book knowledge, this can be turned into a classroom.” Verdict: I want one.
Read more:
Carbon-Sucking Golf Balls And Other Crazy Climate Patents
Inside the Military’s Clean-Energy Revolution
Dot Earth Blog: Is the Internet Good for the Climate?
Is the Internet Good for the Climate?
20,000 lbs Fish + 70,000 Vegetables per 1/4 acre — Portable Farms Aquaponics – watch this video to learn how –
CHARTS: US Carbon Emissions Are Dropping
Visit site:
If you want to avoid lung cancer, the United Nation’s cancer-research body has some advice for you: Don’t breathe.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer on Thursday added air pollution, and the particulate matter that it contains, to its list of carcinogens.
The airborne poisons were classified as “Group 1″ carcinogens, meaning there is “sufficient evidence” that they cause cancer in humans. They are mostly produced through the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles, power plants, and stoves.
And it’s not just lung cancer that can be triggered by air pollution. In a statement [PDF], the agency noted “a positive association” between polluted air and bladder cancer.
“Our task was to evaluate the air everyone breathes rather than focus on specific air pollutants,” agency official Dana Loomis told Reuters. “The results from the reviewed studies point in the same direction: the risk of developing lung cancer is significantly increased in people exposed to air pollution.”
The decision follows findings that air pollution killed 3.2 million people in 2010, including 233,000 cancer-related deaths. Most of the deaths occurred in India, China, and other developing countries with large populations. The Clean Air Act helped dramatically clean up the air that Americans breathe, but anybody who has visited Los Angeles or California’s Central Valley knows that problems persist in the West.
Air pollution and particulate matter now join a list [PDF], nicknamed the encyclopedia of carcinogens, that also contains such nasties as asbestos, plutonium, hepatitis, and tobacco smoke. Oh, and sun rays, estrogen therapy, Chinese-style salted fish, and booze.
Source
Outdoor air pollution a leading environmental cause of cancer deaths, IARC
UN agency calls outdoor air pollution leading cause of cancer, 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.
Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy
Source –
This article:
Libros
