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New Study Questions Experts' Independence
NPR: DuPont Under Fire for Teflon Fumes
The 'Dead Zone': You're Paying for It in More Ways Than One
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April 27, 2006
From the Onion:
EPA Didn't Know Anybody Was Still Drinking Water
WASHINGTON, DC- Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson apologized during a press conference Tuesday for what critics called "flagrant oversight and neglect" in monitoring ground- and tap-water quality across the United States, claiming that his department was unaware that citizens were still consuming it. "I can honestly say we had no idea that anyone used faucet water anymore," Johnson said. "Bottled water, sure—I have some here on the lectern. But if there really are people out there still drinking tap water, all I can say is you're better off not knowing what's in there." Johnson added that official EPA policy is that Americans should stick to sports drinks.
April 25, 2006
Nuclear energy not a clean, cheap answer
In today’s Des Moines Register, Hope Burwell proposes that the nuclear energy industry use post-Chernobyl Belarus as a research opportunity for studying the long-term consequences of, and solutions to radiation exposure.
Read the full editorial here
April 20, 2006
Wetland: Land That Gets Watered?
It's all fair enough. Some of these environmental terms sound like we should all know what they are, but in fact have precise technical definitions: watershed, wetland, sediment to name just three. So Interior Secretary Norton is just making things simpler by making a wetland something we can all understand. Apparently, manmade things, such as manmade ponds and golf course water hazards are now wetlands. When we open up the category to include land that receives water that didn't occur naturally, well, we find that we have more wetlands now than we did in 1997.
Read the Field & Stream piece, or watch Comedy Central's "Colbert Report" on the good news (the clip is called "Birdie"). Or watch the same clip at Youtube.
So does this mean the Department of Interior is going to water my lawn for me?
New Study Questions Experts' Independence
In a study published today in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, researchers found that over half of the 170 experts that review and revise our nation's key mental health manual had undisclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
All of the experts on the panel that work on the mood and psychotic disorders sections had ties to the drug industry.
Because doctors must use codes listed in this manual to diagnose patients and provide information to health insurance companies, anyone who has input into its contents should be free from even the perception, let alone the pursestrings, of drug companies. Read more in the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune or USA Today.
April 19, 2006
NPR: DuPont Under Fire for Teflon Fumes
From NPR's Morning Edition:
Teflon may make a great plate of scrambled eggs, but it also may make for a kitchen full of toxic fumes. That is the issue behind a class action lawsuit against the maker of the non-stick coating, DuPont.Listen to full NPR broadcast here
The 'Dead Zone': You're Paying for It in More Ways Than One
From The Huffington Post:
No, not the Stephen King novel. It's no work of fiction, but a growing horror just the same. Every spring, polluted waters from the Mississippi watershed drain into the Gulf of Mexico, bringing a feast of nitrates for algae, which literally take up all of the available oxygen in the process, killing any bottom-feeding sealife and driving away any other critters capable of moving, e.g. commercially attractive fish and seafood.The "dead zone" grows every year, and is now the size of New Jersey (and I will mightily refrain from NJ jokes). For the tech-minded out there, the oxygen-depletion is known as hypoxia, and the algae takeover of waterways (it also happens in freshwater lakes, streams, etc.) is eutrophication. {For a good technical explanation of the "dead zone" process, go here; for a non-tech/kid-friendly interactive multimedia presentation, try this from the Science Museum of Minnesota.)
Read the rest here
April 13, 2006
MTBE: Joke's on Big Oil
The Albany Times-Union has a great, in-depth piece on MTBE lawsuits this week. Transcripts of Shell Oil execs thinking up clever acronyms for the toxic gasoline additive that's now in drinking water supplies across the nation have them in hot water in the courts -- and since Congress failed to pass legislation to protect polluters last year, companies could end up paying millions to clean up after themselves.EWG's MTBE work is here.
Is Your Cell Phone Being Recycled Responsibly?
Also, the plastic casing on cell phones is often treated with toxic flame retardants. These neurotoxins impair attention, learning, memory and behavior in laboratory tests. After these products reach the landfill or the incinerator they can reenter the soil, air, and water.
Not all recyclers are created equal
According to the Report Card, ReCellular, the most prominent cell phone recycler, refuses to release information demonstrating that their phones are recycled responsibly.
If you want to ensure that your phone will actually be recycled, and that its hazardous byproducts won’t be dumped in developing nations, you’ll want to choose a recycler that has signed the Electronics Recycler's Pledge of True Stewardship.
Check out Earthworks, authors of the Cell Phone Recycling Report Card
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April 3, 2006
"Pombo-ize:" To Defeat/Be Defeated?
In a story in the Contra Costa Times, two people separately coin the term "Pombo-ize" to refer to that California Republican congressman's unsuccessful effort last fall to auction off our public lands. Sen. Chafee of Rhode Island and Michael Bean of Environmental Defense both use the term as they discuss possible changes to existing environmental laws -- to mean that Pombo's proposal got so much negative attention that any related proposal would be tainted by association.The controversial proposal that was 'Pombo-ized' last fall would have allowed developers and anyone else to buy some 350 million acres of taxpayer-owned land in 12 Western states at prices as low as $1,000 an acre. Dozens of newspapers around the country editorialized against the land grab. Read EWG's analysis of the Pombo proposal and see what land in and near national parks and natural gems was threatened: http://www.ewg.org/reports/dirtcheap/ .