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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
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Species Collapse:(1)
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This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
climate impacts  ~ oil issues  ~ contamination  ~ carbon emissions  ~ health impacts  ~ toxic leak  ~ ecosystem interrelationships  ~ economic myopia  ~ corporate malfeasance  ~ heavy metals  ~ anthropogenic change  



ApocaDocuments (3) matching "heavy metals" from this week
[see full week] ~ [see all stories tagged "heavy metals"]
Thu, Feb 17, 2011
from FreeSpeechAtRisk, via BoingBoing:
Using lawsuits to squelch free speech about environmental destruction
In spring of 2008, multinationals Barrick Gold and Banro Corporation filed lawsuits against authors Alain Deneault, Delphine Abadie, and William Sacher, as well as against their Montreal-based publishing house Ecosociete over the book Noir Canada. Pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique (Black Canada. Pillage, corruption and criminality in Africa). The multinationals allege that the book contains false statements about their activities that amount to libel. Despite the well-sourced nature of the material, including reports from the UN, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, they have accused those involved of publishing defamatory statements and are pursuing them for a combined sum of $11 million ($5 million to Banro in an Ontario-based suit, and $6 million to Barrick, filed in Montreal). Our Academic Petition contains further details on the case, as well as the signatures of academic professors from around the world who are pledging their support for the authors and publishing house. Then in February of 2010 Barrick Gold issued a threat of legal action against Vancouver-based publishing house Talonbooks, author Alain Deneault, and the book's translators over their notice of intent to publish a book entitled Imperial Canada Inc. Legal Haven of Choice for the World's Mining Industries. With access to nothing beyond a short description of the material available on the Talonbooks website-with no mention of Barrick-the multinational has threatened further legal action if the book is published and has demanded access to the material prior to its publication. ...


You think you can get away with the truth?

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Thu, Feb 17, 2011
from Harvard, via FastCompany:
Coal Costs the U.S. $500 Billion Annually in Health, Economic, Environmental Impacts
A report from Harvard researchers in this month's Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences will reveal that coal use costs the U.S. between a third and over half a trillion dollars each year in health, economic, and environmental impacts.... The report, written by Dr. Paul Epstein, associate director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, examines the life cycle of coal production to find "hidden costs," or costs that occur "when the activity of one agent affects the well-being of another agent outside of any type of market mechanism." These costs include damages from climate change (like weather events and rising seas, public health damages from toxins released during electricity generation, deaths from rail accidents during coal transport, public health problems in coal-mining regions (in Appalachia, mountaintop removal contaminates surface and groundwater with carcinogens and heavy metals), government subsidies, and lost value of abandoned mine areas. In Appalachian communities alone, public health burdens from coal mining cost $74.6 billion each year. Air pollutant emissions cost $187.5 billion, mercury emission impacts reach $29.3 billion, and greenhouse gas emissions (and accompanying climate change effects) from coal-fired plants costs between between $61.7 and $205.8 billion. And then there are the smaller costs--between $2.2 and $10 billion in impacts from land disturbances, and impacts from toxic spills, declines in property values, tourism loss, and crop damage. ...


Well, sure, but think of the jobs!

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Wed, Feb 16, 2011
from PhysOrg:
China rice laced with heavy metals: report
Up to 10 percent of rice grown in China is contaminated with harmful heavy metals but little has been done to highlight the possible public health risks, a report said. This week's edition of the New Century magazine cited studies showing that large amounts of Chinese rice have been tainted with heavy metals like cadmium due to years of pollution stemming from the nation's rapid economic growth. "During China's fast-paced industrialisation, activities such as mining have sprung up everywhere, releasing into the environment chemical elements like cadmium, arsenic, mercury and other harmful heavy metals," the report said. "These harmful heavy metals have spread through the air and water, polluting a rather large area of China's land... a complete chain of food contamination has existed for years."... Most at risk from high cadmium levels were subsistence farmers in polluted areas who mainly live on the rice they grow, Pan said. ...


Could that be why they're all moving to the cities?

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