Tag Archives: newspaper

How to Responsibly Dispose of Kitty Litter

by LeonoreLongwell Posted on May 6, 2019

Disposing of kitty litter once it’s past its prime may not be a favorite chore, but it’s a necessary one. Unfortunately, cat?litter?is no joke. The cat?feces?it holds?sometimes carries?a dangerous parasite?called Toxoplasma gondii?that can cause the formation of cysts in the brain. As such, getting rid of it in a responsible manner is super important! Here’s what I recommend:

First, never?flush litter. This practice?has been shown to directly harm?marine life.

Even if the product says it’s flushable, you should absolutely never send it down the drain. That parasite we mentioned earlier sheds active spores that are not eliminated by wastewater treatments. Flushing them simply sends the parasite?out into larger bodies of water where it may be contracted by sea otters who are particularly vulnerable to infection. Just don’t do it!

Second, quit using clay litter and choose a more eco-friendly?biodegradable product.

Nearly all the bentonite clay mined in this country is obtained by an environmentally destructive process called strip mining which involves bulldozing precious natural areas?(and the living things that inhabit it)?to get to mineral deposits underneath. It’s an icky process – one we should never support. Your cat litter just isn’t worth that.

As an alternative, look at one of the many biodegradable options on the market. Here are a few options worth considering:

Newspaper
Grass seed
Wheat
Pine cobble

If your cat tends to be picky about its litter and switching to a new product sounds risky, try this method: replace one quarter of your cat’s litter with a new litter each week. By the end of the month they’ll have adjusted, no problem!

Third, retool your litter disposal routine.

When it comes to responsibly disposing of kitty litter, you have two primary options: composting or scooping and tossing in?a safe bag. If you can swing it, composting is absolutely the best option out there.

To compost cat waste, you’ll?need to make sure your compost pile heats to more than 145 degrees Fahrenheit to ensure bacteria and pathogens are removed. It’s a bit of extra effort, but?well worth it in the end.

If composting isn’t in the cards,?scoop feces into a biodegradable bag and toss in your curbside garbage with the rest of your household waste. When it’s time to change out your litter entirely, empty the box?in the same fashion then wash with a gentle but effective cleanser like?Castile soap or white vinegar.

Oh, and before you go, be sure to check out this easy-to-keep-up litter box routine. It will make keeping that litter box in check so much simpler!

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How to Responsibly Dispose of Kitty Litter

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Which Type of Mulch is Best for Your Garden?

by KeeshaWhitworth Posted on April 26, 2017

Next time youre in nature, try looking at the ground. Its usually covered in old leaves, fallen branches, rocks and other debris. This layer is vital for soil health. It helps regulate moisture, provides nutrients, suppresses weeds, prevents erosion and supports resident microbes and insects.

You can recreate this effect by mulching any bare areas in your garden. Mulch is essentially anything that covers your soil. And its meant to stay on top of soil as a buffer, not to be dug in like compost or fertilizer. Organic types of mulch will break down and release nutrients over time, but keep them on the soil surface for the most benefit.

There are many different types of mulch you can use. Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages, depending on your site. These are some of the most common mulches available.

Wood Chips and Shredded Bark

Wood chips are primarily branches and wood fiber cut into small pieces. Whereas, shredded bark is only bark with no wood pulp. Both make excellent mulch in areas youd like to keep clean, such as under strawberries or other low-growing crops. You can also use them in pathways or around perennial plantings.

Wood chips retain water better and break down faster than shredded bark. This means that chips may be a better choice in areas like a vegetable garden where you want more moisture and nutrients. Bark may do better in long-term areas where you want better drainage, such as underneath shrubs.

Rocks

Covering the soil with large rocks counts as mulch. Rock gardens may look dry, but the moisture stored under rocks helps sustain the surrounding plants.

Rocks will also capture heat from the sun and create warm microclimates around them, which can be very helpful in cooler regions. Rocks can also prevent erosion when used on a slope.

Yard Debris

Dont be too quick to clean up your yard. Lawn clippings can be left on the lawn to compost in place, or gathered and spread over your garden beds. You can do the same with any plant trimmings, especially leafy greens from vegetables or flowering plants. These can be left next to the plants to cover the soil and allow the nutrients to be recycled.

Fall leaves are a great opportunity to add extra organic matter to your beds. They also help keep the soil warm and safe over winter.

If you have your own compost pile, your finished compost can be used as mulch. Depending on how rich your compost is, you may want to spread a small amount throughout your garden and then cover it with a less nutritious mulch like dried leaves.

Gravel or Pebbles

These small stones are typically used for pathways or driveways. Unlike pavement or cement, they allow water to pass through to the soil underneath. Like larger rocks, gravel and pebbles will absorb heat during the day and release it at night.

Its best to contain gravel or pebbles within a frame or solid edging material. They often scatter into your garden beds or lawn if theyre left loose. This is annoying for bed maintenance, and can be a hazard if your lawnmower catches and throws loose gravel.

Wine Cork Mulch

Almost 13 billion wine corks are produced worldwide every year. Unfortunately, many of these end up in landfills. A much better use for corks is to repurpose them as mulch.

Wine corks are a natural material made from bark of the cork oat tree, native to the Mediterranean. Corks are dried and compressed to be water resistant, so they need to be broken into smaller pieces to make a good mulch. These are full instructions on how to make your own wine cork mulch.

Newspaper

Mulching is a great way to reuse newspaper. Newspaper blocks sunlight from reaching the soil, so its excellent for controlling weeds. These are some helpful tips on how to use newspaper mulch in your garden.

Newspapers that are only printed with black ink are safe to use. The black ink contains a carbon-based compound thats biodegradable. On the other hand, colored inks may contain harmful metals or other compounds, such as lead or sulfur. Not all inks are harmful, but its hard to know exactly whats in each one. Its best to avoid any colored flyers and inserts from your newspapers.

Straw

Straw is the dry stalks left-over from grain crops after the grains have been harvested. Not to be confused with hay, which is usually a mix of grasses, legumes and other plants that are grown to feed to animals. Hay includes all the seeds from these plants, which would create a huge weed problem if you used it as mulch.

Straw will have less seeds in it than hay, although some of the grain and other possible weed seeds will be present. Its good organic matter and will provide lots of carbon to your soil as it breaks down.

Although, avoid using straw if you have any rodents on your property. Rodents like mice, voles or rats love nesting in straw and will make homes in your mulch.

Landscape Fabrics

The most common landscape fabric is made from woven polypropylene, which is a type of plastic. Its typically laid directly on top of soil. The fact its woven allows water to go through the fabric while providing a solid barrier to prevent weed growth. You can cut individual holes in the fabric where you want to plant shrubs, trees or other plants.

Other mulches can be put on top of the fabric to make it look better, such as bark mulch or gravel. Although, weeds often take root in between the mulch and the fabric as the fabric breaks down over time. These weeds can be difficult to remove in older landscapes as they become entangled in the fabric.

Synthetic Lawns

Many mulches are good in garden beds, but what if you have an area you want to keep open for recreation or other uses? Thats where synthetic lawns work well. They dont require the water and maintenance of a real grass lawn, and they still provide the benefit of protecting your soil.

A synthetic or artificial lawn is made from different types of plastic materials to create a mat that looks and feels like real grass. It can be shaped to fit any area you need to fill.

Living Mulch

If you have a bare edge in your garden, try planting something low-growing to fill the space. Perennials like thyme, sedum, rock cress, snow in summer or candytuft can make excellent ground covers that will return every year. Annuals like alyssum, lobelia, begonia, bacopa or petunias will bloom all season as well as cover your soil.

Related
10 Bee-Friendly Plants That are Easy to Grow
9 Beneficial Bugs & Insects to Welcome in the Garden
12 Ways to Get Rid of Aggressive Weeds Without Resorting to Roundup

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Which Type of Mulch is Best for Your Garden?

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The Question the White House Won’t Answer: Did Trump’s Campaign Have Contact With Russia?

by cheriehatten008 Posted on February 14, 2017

Mother Jones

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The first question at White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s daily briefing on Tuesday—half a day after the news broke that national security adviser Michael Flynn had resigned—focused on a key issue: Flynn’s contacts with the Vladimir Putin regime during the campaign. Flynn has been under fire for his post-election conversations with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak, during which he discussed the sanctions President Barack Obama was imposing on Russia as punishment for Moscow’s meddling in the US election. But ABC News’ Jonathan Karl asked whether any Trump associates were in touch with the Russian government before the election.

This is important, for that would mean that Trump folks were in contact with the Putin regime while it was attacking American democracy. Trump and his team have adamantly denied there were any interactions with Russian officials. At a press conference in mid-January, Trump ignored a question about such contacts. Once the event was over, he said, “No contact.” Days later, on Face the Nation, incoming Vice President Mike Pence said the Trump campaign had no interactions with Moscow. Host John Dickerson asked him, “Did any adviser or anybody in the Trump campaign have any contact with the Russians who were trying to meddle in the election?” Pence declared, “Of course not. And I think to suggest that is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy.”

Yet the Washington Post reported days ago that Kislyak told the newspaper he had been in touch with Flynn since before the election. The ambassador declined to say what he and Flynn had discussed. And the newspaper reported that the Flynn-Kislyak conversations “were part of a series of contacts between Flynn and Kislyak that began before the Nov. 8 election and continued during the transition, officials said.” These facts and Kislyak’s comment undercut Trump’s and Pence’s assertions there were no pre-election contacts.

So what was Spicer to say when Karl posed this query? At first, Spicer said that Flynn did speak to the Russian ambassador during the transition. No, Karl protested, that’s not the question. What about before the election? Spicer then sputtered out this reply: “There’s nothing that would conclude me that anything different has changed with respect to that time period.”

That contorted reply would seem to mean that the White House is sticking to its previous denial. But this assertion runs contrary to what is now the public record: that the Trump campaign was in contact with Putin’s man in Washington while Putin was subverting an American election to help Trump. What was going on? What was said? What messages did Flynn send to the Putin regime? These are the obvious questions that warrant answers. They are also dangerous questions for Trump. And that’s why Spicer cannot acknowledge the hard truth that the Flynn scandal started before the election. These contacts deserve as much, if not more, attention than the conversations that triggered this controversy, for they are relevant to the fundamental subject at hand: Trump’s relationship with the autocratic leader who mounted an operation to subvert American democracy to assist Trump.

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The Question the White House Won’t Answer: Did Trump’s Campaign Have Contact With Russia?

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Facebook Makes It Easy for Advertisers to Be Racist

by SolomonToosey Posted on October 28, 2016

Mother Jones

This story originally appeared on ProPublica.

Imagine if, during the Jim Crow era, a newspaper offered advertisers the option of placing ads only in copies that went to white readers.

That’s basically what Facebook is doing nowadays.

The ubiquitous social network not only allows advertisers to target users by their interests or background, it also gives advertisers the ability to exclude specific groups it calls “Ethnic Affinities.” Ads that exclude people based on race, gender and other sensitive factors are prohibited by federal law in housing and employment.

Here is a screenshot of a housing ad that we purchased from Facebook’s self-service advertising portal:

ProPublica

The ad we purchased was targeted to Facebook members who were house hunting and excluded anyone with an “affinity” for African-American, Asian-American or Hispanic people. (Here’s the ad itself.)

When we showed Facebook’s racial exclusion options to a prominent civil rights lawyer John Relman, he gasped and said, “This is horrifying. This is massively illegal. This is about as blatant a violation of the federal Fair Housing Act as one can find.”

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 makes it illegal “to make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.” Violators can face tens of thousands of dollars in fines.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also prohibits the “printing or publication of notices or advertisements indicating prohibited preference, limitation, specification or discrimination” in employment recruitment.

Facebook’s business model is based on allowing advertisers to target specific groups 2014 or, apparently to exclude specific groups 2014 using huge reams of personal data the company has collected about its users. Facebook’s microtargeting is particularly helpful for advertisers looking to reach niche audiences, such as swing-state voters concerned about climate change. ProPublica recently offered a tool allowing users to see how Facebook is categorizing them. We found nearly 50,000 unique categories in which Facebook places its users.

Facebook says its policies prohibit advertisers from using the targeting options for discrimination, harassment, disparagement or predatory advertising practices.

“We take a strong stand against advertisers misusing our platform: Our policies prohibit using our targeting options to discriminate, and they require compliance with the law,” said Steve Satterfield, privacy and public policy manager at Facebook. “We take prompt enforcement action when we determine that ads violate our policies.”

Satterfield said it’s important for advertisers to have the ability to both include and exclude groups as they test how their marketing performs. For instance, he said, an advertiser “might run one campaign in English that excludes the Hispanic affinity group to see how well the campaign performs against running that ad campaign in Spanish. This is a common practice in the industry.”

He said Facebook began offering the “Ethnic Affinity” categories within the past two years as part of a “multicultural advertising” effort.

Satterfield added that the “Ethnic Affinity” is not the same as race 2014 which Facebook does not ask its members about. Facebook assigns members an “Ethnic Affinity” based on pages and posts they have liked or engaged with on Facebook.

When we asked why “Ethnic Affinity” was included in the “Demographics” category of its ad-targeting tool if it’s not a representation of demographics, Facebook responded that it plans to move “Ethnic Affinity” to another section.

Facebook declined to answer questions about why our housing ad excluding minority groups was approved 15 minutes after we placed the order.

By comparison, consider the advertising controls that the New York Times has put in place to prevent discriminatory housing ads. After the newspaper was successfully sued under the Fair Housing Act in 1989, it agreed to review ads for potentially discriminatory content before accepting them for publication.

Steph Jespersen, the Times’ director of advertising acceptability, said that the company’s staff runs automated programs to make sure that ads that contain discriminatory phrases such as “whites only” and “no kids” are rejected.

The Times’ automated program also highlights ads that contain potentially discriminatory code words such as “near churches” or “close to a country club.” Humans then review those ads before they can be approved.

Jespersen said the Times also rejects housing ads that contain photographs of too many white people. The people in the ads must represent the diversity of the population of New York, and if they don’t, he says he will call up the advertiser and ask them to submit an ad with a more diverse lineup of models.

But, Jespersen said, these days most advertisers know not to submit discriminatory ads: “I haven’t seen an ad with 2018whites only’ for a long time.”

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Facebook Makes It Easy for Advertisers to Be Racist

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Bombshell New York Times Report Reveals Details From Donald Trump’s 1995 Tax Records

by JoleenRayner Posted on October 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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The New York Times dropped a bombshell of an investigation Saturday night when it published fragments from Donald Trump’s 1995 tax return.

Tax experts hired by the Times said that the $916 million dollars in operating losses listed by Trump in the 1995 document may have allowed him to avoid paying federal taxes over a possible 18-year period.

A lawyer for Donald Trump threatened the Times with “prompt initiation of appropriate legal action,” declaring the publication of the GOP nominee’s records illegal. Trump’s campaign itself responded to the report by issuing a statement that read, in part: “Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes.”

More detail here:

The $916 million loss certainly could have eliminated any federal income taxes Mr. Trump otherwise would have owed on the $50,000 to $100,000 he was paid for each episode of “The Apprentice,” or the roughly $45 million he was paid between 1995 and 2009 when he was chairman or chief executive of the publicly traded company he created to assume ownership of his troubled Atlantic City casinos. Ordinary investors in the new company, meanwhile, saw the value of their shares plunge to 17 cents from $35.50, while scores of contractors went unpaid for work on Mr. Trump’s casinos and casino bondholders received pennies on the dollar.

“He has a vast benefit from his destruction” in the early 1990s, said one of the experts, Joel Rosenfeld, an assistant professor at New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate. Mr. Rosenfeld offered this description of what he would advise a client who came to him with a tax return like Mr. Trump’s: “Do you realize you can create $916 million in income without paying a nickel in taxes?”

The Times says the documents were mailed to one of its reporters. The envelope’s return address, according to the Times, claimed it was sent from Trump Tower. Each of the pages sent to the newspaper listed the names and social security numbers for Trump and his then-partner, Marla Maples. The Times then verified the documents with Jack Mitnick, who handled Trump’s tax returns at the time.

Trump has continually refused to release his tax returns, and the issue came up again during last Monday’s presidential debate. Trump regularly defends himself by saying that an IRS audit prevents him from releasing the records. (The IRS says Trump is free to make his documents public.)

Read the full report and see the original documents over at The New York Times.

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Bombshell New York Times Report Reveals Details From Donald Trump’s 1995 Tax Records

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Shooting at Oregon Community College Leaves at Least 13 Dead, 20 Wounded

by ThereseFornacho Posted on October 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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Update, 8:15 p.m. EDT: Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin says the fatalities are less than originally reported by the attorney general— there are 10 fatalities and 7 injured. There are still no details on the shooter.

Update, 5:03 p.m. EDT: Oregon Gov. Kate Brown confirms that the shooter was a 20-year-old male. “I know I am joined by my fellow Oregonians and Americans in profound dismay and heartbreak at this tragedy at Umpqua Community College,” Brown said.

Update, 4:52 p.m. EDT: Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin confirms that the shooter is dead. “I couldn’t be happier with the officer response today,” Hanlin said.

Hanlin said the scene is still active and being investigated.

Update, 4:08 p.m. EDT: Oregon’s attorney general confirms that at least 13 people were killed and 20 people wounded in today’s shooting.

In response to the shooting, the White House repeated its call for increased gun control laws. “The issue of sensible steps that can be taken to protect our communities from gun violence continues to be a top priority of this administration,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said on Thursday.

Previously:

Multiple media outlets are reporting a shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon.

On MSNBC, Brian Williams interviewed a local firefighter who said he had been on the scene and witnessed “multiple deceased” and “multiple” injured people who were transported for emergency care. He said the campus had been evacuated.

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Emergency responders are in the process of clearing buildings at Umpqua Community College now. Students are being escorted now to get off campus. Wayne Crooch building has just been secured.

Posted by

As news of the shooting first broke, a student tweeted the following:

According to the gun safety coalition Everytown, today’s shooting marks the 45th school shooting in 2015 alone.

This is a breaking news post. We will update as more news becomes available.

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Shooting at Oregon Community College Leaves at Least 13 Dead, 20 Wounded

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Decoding the Scene From Dylann Roof’s "Favorite Film"

by TarahFreeland Posted on June 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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Screenshots taken from the film Himizu.

Among the many violent and racist images in the apparent manifesto of Dylann Roof, the alleged mass murderer, is something slightly more exotic: a reference to the 2011 ultra-violent Japanese crime drama, Himizu (a New York Times “Critics Pick”). The manifesto uncovered on Saturday morning reads: “To take a saying from my favorite film, ‘Even if my life is worth less than a speck of dirt, I want to use it for the good of society’.”

The movie, adapted from a popular manga by director Sion Sono, is set in tsunami-hit Japan in 2011, and follows the story of two teenagers—unloved, unwanted—struggling to survive amid the chaos wrought by the earthquake, and corruption. It’s a twisted and dark coming-of-age story (at some points a romance) that is beautifully shot and scored, but I wouldn’t say it’s an easy watch.

More Mother Jones coverage of the Charleston Shooting:


Here’s What We Know About the People Who Lost Their Lives in Charleston


Dylann Storm Roof Identified as Suspected Gunman in Charleston Mass Shooting (Updated)


Should the Charleston Attack Be Called Terrorism?


The Gun Lobby Blames the Charleston Mass Shooting on “Gun-Free Zones”


WATCH: Obama Just Delivered Remarks About the Mass Shooting in Charleston


Charleston’s Hometown Newspaper Is Putting Awful Cable News to Shame


Families of Charleston Shooting Victims: “We Forgive You”

The full scene in which that quote appears is in many ways far more disturbing than the quote in the manifesto, and might contain even darker clues about what might have inspired Roof’s attack at the Emanuel AME church in Charleston, S.C., on Wednesday, which killed nine people. One of the main characters, Sumida—a brooding, angry boy—is recording his own voice onto a tape deck, preparing for an act of mass violence in the streets of Japan:

It’s May 7, the first day of the rest of my life. No police, no suicide. I guess I’m stingier than I figured. Even if my life is worth less than a speck of dirt. I want to use it for the good of society. I must have been born to do some good. I’ll kill idiots who trouble citizens.

Sumida has just brutally attacked and killed his father in a fit of rage in the previous scene. Caked in mud, he returns to a trailer to contemplate his next steps—some kind of vigilante justice—covering his face and body in multi-colored paints, and rather calmly intoning his plans. He then takes a large knife and begins killing people.

The choice of a Japanese film might seem peculiar at first, given the manifesto is a white supremacy rant. But in a section titled “East Asians”, the essay reads: “Even if we were to go extinct they could carry something on. They are by nature very racist and could be great allies of the White race. I am not opposed at all to allies with the Northeast Asian races.”

The film was widely praised by reviewers. The Guardian wrote that the director “Sono retains his go-for-the-throat approach, but the violence here somehow connects with the brutal economic conditions, and he fosters very tender, affecting performances.”

If Roof watched the whole film, he surely missed the point—the moral universe of the film is pretty clear. The film ends with Sumida’s friend Keiko convincing him to give himself up to the police and seek redemption. The end of the film, tracking through the rubble left by the tsunami, is especially haunting.

“Let’s go to the police,” she says. “Sumida. Don’t give up. Live! Sumida. Say something. Don’t give up! Have a dream!”

Roof did the opposite: he extinguished the hopes and dreams of so many innocent people and their families on Wednesday night.

Watch the film’s trailer below:

Himizu (trailer) from Cinefamily on Vimeo.

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Decoding the Scene From Dylann Roof’s "Favorite Film"

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This Major Newspaper Just Declared War on Fossil Fuels

by Myrna Posted on March 20, 2015

Inside the Guardian’s decision to embrace climate activism. Jonathan Nicholson/ZUMA After 20 years at the helm of one of the United Kingdom’s most influential newspapers, Alan Rusbridger is about to step down as editor of the Guardian. He’s not going quietly: In an op-ed a couple weeks ago, Rusbridger pledged to use his waning weeks to launch a full-out war on climate change: So, in the time left to me as editor, I thought I would try to harness the Guardian’s best resources to describe what is happening…For the purposes of our coming coverage, we will assume that the scientific consensus about man-made climate change and its likely effects is overwhelming. We will leave the sceptics and deniers to waste their time challenging the science. The mainstream argument has moved on to the politics and economics… We will look at who is getting the subsidies and who is doing the lobbying. We will name the worst polluters and find out who still funds them. We will urge enlightened trusts, investment specialists, universities, pension funds and businesses to take their money away from the companies posing the biggest risk to us. And, because people are rightly bound to ask, we will report on how the Guardian Media Group itself is getting to grips with the issues. The Guardian, a Climate Desk partner, is no stranger to global warming reporting. It was the first daily paper in the UK to institute a dedicated section for environment coverage. The paper has extensively covered international climate negotiations, fracking on both sides of the Atlantic, and the latest climate science, while also pouring resources into lush interactive web features. But its new initiative promises to go even further. The series kicked off with a pair of excerpts from Harvard science historian Naomi Klein’s recent book on the tension between capitalism and the climate crisis. Over the next few months it will include investigative features, daily news stories, videos and podcasts, and even original artwork and poetry. The pieces will appear not just on the paper’s environment pages, but across all sections, from business and tech to lifestyle and the arts. The overarching idea is that from now until Rusbridger’s departure in June, any climate story that any reporter has had kicking around but has never had time to tackle will get priority treatment. But the centerpiece is all about the penultimate sentence in the excerpt above: “We will urge…” This week the Guardian kicked off a petition calling on the world’s two largest charitable organizations, the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, to divest their financial holdings from the world’s 200 top fossil fuel companies. As of Thursday afternoon, the petition had gathered over 94,000 signatures and earned the support of the country’s energy minister. If that sounds a lot like straight-up activism, that’s because it is. Rusbridger proposed the petition a few months ago at a meeting that included a who’s-who of the paper’s top editors, designers, and website coders, said James Randerson, an assistant national news editor who handles climate reporting. “There were some voices who questioned whether a campaign was the best use of the Guardian‘s voice,” Randerson said, “because the Guardian is about reporting and uncovering things that people can use in advancing an agenda.” But Rusbridger’s argument, Randerson said, was: “We’ve tried to do that for quite a while, and we needed to do something that had a bit more cut-through. We felt that it was time to take that step.” The idea of a newspaper undertaking an openly activist campaign straight from the playbook of Greenpeace or the Sierra Club might seem strange to American audiences, who are accustomed to news outlets at least purporting to adhere to some degree of journalistic objectivity. But in the UK, newspapers taking a step across the line between news and activism is, well, less newsworthy. In 2014 the Guardian waged a similar campaign against female genital mutilation. Prior to the 2009 UN climate summit in Copenhagen, the Guardian convinced 56 newspapers from around the globe to publish a front-page editorial calling for climate action. Randerson also characterized the paper’s extensive reporting on Edward Snowden and the National Security Agency as a kind of unofficial campaign against state surveillance. And the Times of London has an ongoing campaign to promote safety for urban cyclists, inspired by an accident that nearly killed one of its reporters. Randerson said the campaign won’t dampen the editorial rigor applied to reporting, editing, and fact-checking news stories. Is it time for the Washington Post and the New York Times to launch climate petitions of their own? Randerson wouldn’t say, but he did argue that especially in the United States, “the media have not done a service to their readers in explaining what’s really at stake here.” Now we get a chance to see if a more direct approach does the trick. View the original here: This Major Newspaper Just Declared War on Fossil Fuels

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This Major Newspaper Just Declared War on Fossil Fuels

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Here’s a List of People to Follow on Twitter for the Latest on the Australian Hostage Crisis

by FelipeWHKvsc Posted on December 15, 2014

Mother Jones

An armed assailant is holding an unconfirmed number of hostages in a cafe in downtown Sydney. Police have evacuated the area and are locking down a pedestrian thoroughfare, Martin Place. Here is a partial list of people and organizations you can follow on Twitter to stay up-to-date on the ongoing hostage crisis:

Buzzfeed Australia‘s breaking news reporter Mark Di Stefano is on the scene.
Channel 9 journalist Caroline Marcus is doing a great job covering the unfolding events.

Guardian Australia‘s Bridie Jabour has been running that site’s live blog and beta-testing the facts as they emerge.
Sydney police reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Lucy Carter, is also on the scene and tweeting.

Jess Hill is also doing a great job fact-checking the news as it breaks.

Cath Turner, a reporter for Seven News, a television company with studios within walking distance of the cafe.
You should already be following the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Mark Colvin for everything Australia-related.
For political ramifications, Fairfax reporter Latika Bourke is a great go-to.
The Sydney Morning Herald
The ABC

The Australian Newspaper
The New South Wales police, who are taking the lead on operations

Continue at source – 

Here’s a List of People to Follow on Twitter for the Latest on the Australian Hostage Crisis

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First oil shale mine in U.S. is coming to Utah

by abram Posted on December 24, 2013

First oil shale mine in U.S. is coming to Utah

By

Jim Davis / Utah Geological Survey

Utah’s Uinta Basin

before

shale mining begins.

As if we didn’t already have enough filthy, inefficient, unconventional oil-extraction techniques in use in North America, here’s one more: oil shale mining.

A Utah company has received the go-ahead from the state’s water-quality department to begin operating the first commercial oil shale mine in North America.

Oil shale is not to be confused with shale oil, or shale gas, or oil sands. So what the hell is it? “Contrary to its name,” explains Western Resource Advocates, “oil shale contains no petroleum but is instead a dense rock that has a waxy substance called kerogen tightly bound within it. When kerogen is heated to high temperatures, it liquefies, producing compounds that can eventually be refined into synthetic petroleum products.”

Companies have mulled oil shale mining in the Mountain States for more than a century, but previous efforts have foundered as energy prices have been too low to justify the large expense associated with the complicated extraction process. Now Red Leaf Resources is ready to give oil shale another crack. Here’s more from The Salt Lake Tribune:

Regulators on Friday issued a groundwater permit to Red Leaf Resources, a Utah company planning to develop a shale mine and below-grade ovens to heat ore mined from state land in the Uinta Basin. …

Kerogen-bearing shale exists in vast abundance under Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, but no one has figured out how to extract oil from it in commercial amounts. With 600 million barrels available under its Utah leasehold, Red Leaf hopes to be the first.

Its initial, small-scale demonstration project “will produce more than 300,000 barrels of oil and prove our clean oil shale technology works on a large scale,” said CEO Adolph Lechtenberger in a news release. …

In Red Leaf’s trademarked EcoShale process, operators dig pits lined with bentonite and clay, fill them with ore and heat it to 725 degrees for a few months.

In-situ, high-temperature petroleum refining in stunning Utah landscapes sounds like a dreadful idea. But water quality regulators say there isn’t enough water in the parched area to give them any cause to worry. “We based our permit decision on the absence of water in the extraction process, the lack of an aquifer and low permeability of the rocks underlying the test site,” one official told the newspaper.

Environmentalists, however, are freaking out. “They take the skin off the planet and are not putting it back,” said John Weisheit of the group Living Rivers. “They are destroying the watershed, the near-surface aquifers.” His group has gone to court to hold up approvals of plans to mine tar-sands oil nearby, but hasn’t been able to block this oil shale project.

We’ll be sure to let you know when this all goes to shit.


Source
Utah OKs nation’s first commercial oil shale mine, The Salt Lake Tribune

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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Continued – 

First oil shale mine in U.S. is coming to Utah

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