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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
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This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
global warming  ~ antibiotic resistance  ~ contamination  ~ capitalist greed  ~ economic myopia  ~ pandemic  ~ anthropogenic change  ~ ecosystem interrelationships  ~ climate impacts  ~ superbugs  ~ poverty  



ApocaDocuments (6) matching "contamination" from this week
[see full week] ~ [see all stories tagged "contamination"]
Sat, Jan 2, 2010
from China Daily:
China seizes 8,500 tons of smuggled waste tires from US
The Chinese customs authority said it had seized more than 8,500 tons of highly-polluting used tires smuggled from the United States, the biggest amount in recent years. Smugglers pretended they were importing rubber and shipped the pollutants to the coastal city of South China's Guangzhou via Hong Kong between December 2008 and February 2009, the General Administration of Customs said Thursday. The Huangpu Customs officials in Guangzhou found in late December 366 uncleared containers of the smuggled waste at the Dongjiangkou Port, which had lain there for almost a year, said Chen Wen, an inspection department official with the customs. The containers, if lined up, would stretch a length of 4.7 kilometers, according to customs officials. ...


Can't they turn all those tires into finger puzzles or firecrackers or something?

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Thu, Dec 31, 2009
from McClatchy Newspapers:
Dust: Tiny particles with a big impact
Dust, dust, dust. It's everywhere, burrowing under beds, piling up on windowsills, clogging guns and machinery, irritating eyes, noses and lungs. It soars thousands of miles over continents and oceans, sometimes obliterating the sky. Enormous masses of the stuff - fine grains of soil, sand, smoke, soot, sea salt and other tiny particles, both seen and unseen - pervade Earth's air, land and water. Now scientists are beginning to have new respect for the way dust alters the environment and affects the health of people, animals and plants. As global warming raises temperatures and forests are cleared for agriculture and other development, the amount of dust swirling through the Earth's atmosphere is expected to grow. The likely impact is unknown. ...


...all we are is dust in the wind....

ApocaDoc
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Thu, Dec 31, 2009
from London Guardian:
Shell must face Friends of the Earth Nigeria claim in Netherlands
A judge in the Netherlands has opened the door to a potential avalanche of legal cases against Shell over environmental degradation said to be caused by its oil operations in the Niger Delta. The oil group expressed "disappointment" tonight that a court in The Hague had agreed to allow Friends of the Earth Netherlands and four local Nigerian farmers to bring a compensation case in its backyard for the first time... Friends of the Earth claims the oil spills are not accidents but represent a pattern of systematic pollution and contempt for the rights of the local population that had been going on for decades, something denied by the oil group. Up until now compensation claims have been brought in Nigeria, but many have become bogged down in a congested court system. ...


Stay tuned... for the next couple of decades to see how this turns out.

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Wed, Dec 30, 2009
from Associated Press:
Scientists begin testing mussels for pollutants
SAN FRANCISCO -- California scientists hope studying 180 black mussels pried from algae-covered rocks in San Francisco Bay will provide clues into how many drugs and chemicals are polluting waters across the nation. Mussels filter water and store contaminants in their tissue, providing a record of pollution in the environment. The creatures are being culled from 80 sites in California as part of a pilot study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to see how pervasive the substances have become. "We haven't measured mussels for these compounds, so there's not a lot of data," Dominic Gregorio, a senior environmental scientist with the State Water Resources Control Board, said. "So this is really a first step to be proactive and get ahead of the curve on this." ...


What, pray tell, HAVE you scientists been doing???

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Mon, Dec 28, 2009
from Associated Press:
NY scientists to study affect of everyday toxins
New York scientists have been awarded a $5 million federal grant to study long-term human exposure to chemicals in the environment. Chemicals can pop up in plastic bottles, toys, medical equipment and pillows and upholstery. Scientists are looking to see if micro-amounts of environmental compounds that humans are exposed to will stay in the body, or have lasting effects. California and Washington state also have been awarded grants. Scientists will take samples of urine, blood and saliva, and even test the breath of subjects... They'll measure how much and what kinds of chemicals are flowing through blood and fat tissue. Some of those chemicals are metabolized and leave the body, while others hang around. ...


I feel like this would have been exciting news ... in the 1950s!

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Mon, Dec 28, 2009
from Agence France-Presse:
Need for power coal threatens Zimbabwe national park
Zimbabwe's already dim electricity supply faces a new threat, as the country's main power plant says it needs to dig for new coal reserves under a river inside a national park to keep running. Hwange Colliery says it only has enough coal to power its 940 megawatt plant for three more years. Shortages of coal and working capital, as well as ageing and broken equipment, have already forced the shutdown of three smaller power stations across Zimbabwe, causing daily blackouts that have plagued the country for years. The company says its only viable new deposits of coal suitable for power generation lie in the heart of the Hwange national park, under a river that supplies nearby towns -- including the world-famous Victoria Falls -- as well as thousands of endangered animals. Accessing the new coal would mean strip mining one of the environmentally delicate region's few water supplies. ...


Zimbab-we hardly knew ye.

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