Biology
Breach
October 20, 2014, from Mother Jones
David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, presides over a company with famously wacky product labels. Sample sentence, from the 18-in-1 Hemp PEPPERMINT soap bottle: "Each swallow works hard to be perfect pilot-provider-teacher-lover-mate, no half-true hate!" But Bronner himself, grandson of the founder (the one with the elaborate prose style), has emerged as a serious, though fun-loving, activist, particularly around pesticides and genetically modified crops, as Josh Harkinson's recent Mother Jones profile shows.
But apparently, Bronner's writing on GMOs is too hot for the advertising pages of the English-speaking world's two most renowned science journals, Science and Nature--even though a slew of magazines, including Scientific American, The New Yorker, Harper's, The Nation, Harvard, and, yes, Mother Jones, accepted the Bronner ad. It consists of a short essay, known in publishing as an advertorial, that's nothing like the wild-eyed rants on his company's soap bottles. Bronner's ad (PDF) focuses on how GMO crops have led to a net increase in pesticide use in the United States, citing an analysis by Ramon Seidler, a retired senior staff scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency.
October 20, 2009, from National Geographic
Tree leaves are "magnetized" by air pollution, and the phenomenon may offer a new and inexpensive technique for quickly identifying air-pollution hot spots, scientists say.
The technique, they add, could help city officials plan healthier bike paths, walkways, and running paths. Vehicle exhaust and other sources of air pollution spew out metallic fragments that then adhere to nearby tree leaves, said study leader Bernie Housen, a geophysicist at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington...Housen's study revealed that leaves plucked from trees along regular bus routes were up to ten times more magnetic than those on quieter streets.
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Climate
Chaos
October 20, 2014, from Huffington Post
The opposition to new social studies textbooks in Texas is building its case. Last week, critics contended some of the proposed books distorted historical events through a conservative political and religious lens. This week, a report argues the books contain a number of inaccuracies about climate change and climate science.
The report released Monday, from the National Center for Science Education, finds that some textbooks up for adoption present a false picture of scientific views on issues like global warming... Two of the books have passages stating that scientists disagree about the causes of climate change, according to NCSE.
October 20, 2014, from London Daily Mail
October 20, 2014, from InsideClimate News
Like August before it, September 2014 was the warmest September on record, according to newly updated NASA data. The warm month makes it even more likely that 2014 will become the warmest year on record.
This September was about 1.4F above the 1951-1980 average temperature for the month, data from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) showed. That makes it the warmest September in GISS records, edging out the previous September record set in 2005. GISS records extend back to 1880.
October 20, 2011, from BBC
The Earth's surface really is getting warmer, a new analysis by a US scientific group set up in the wake of the "ClimateGate" affair has confirmed.
The Berkeley Earth Project has used new methods and some new data, but finds the same warming trend seen by groups such as the UK Met Office and Nasa.
The project received funds from sources that back organisations lobbying against action on climate change....
The Berkeley group found about 40,000 weather stations around the world whose output has been recorded and stored in digital form.
It developed a new way of analysing the data to plot the global temperature trend over land since 1800.
What came out was a graph remarkably similar to those produced by the world's three most important and established groups, whose work had been decried as unreliable and shoddy in climate sceptic circles.
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Resource
Depletion
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Recovery
October 20, 2009, from Associated Press
Michigan's coal-fired power plants will be required to make drastic cuts in mercury emissions under regulations announced Monday.
The rules developed by the Department of Environmental Quality are designed to implement a policy Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced three years ago to slash the generators' mercury output 90 percent by 2015. Coal-fired plants produce 60 percent of Michigan's electricity.
"Mercury is a serious health concern, and Michigan is eager to see a major reduction in mercury air emissions," DEQ Director Steven Chester said.
A powerful toxin, mercury can damage the human nervous system and cause learning disabilities in fetuses and young children. Coal-fired electric plants are the nation's leading source of mercury pollution.
October 20, 2009, from Chicago Tribune
The Obama administration is cracking down on BP as the oil company overhauls its massive refinery in northwest Indiana, one of the largest sources of air pollution in the Chicago area.
In response to a petition from environmental groups, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today ordered Indiana regulators to revamp a new operating permit for the Midwest's biggest refinery. The groups, along with elected officials in Illinois, contend Indiana had allowed the oil giant to avoid stringent requirements under the federal Clean Air Act.
Tougher pollution limits could help relieve problems with lung-damaging soot and smog in the metropolitan area that stretches around the tip of Lake Michigan.
In a 24-page order, the agency directed Indiana to take a new look at several sources of air pollution at the Whiting refinery, 15 miles southeast of downtown Chicago. The results are due in 90 days.
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