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WSJ, USA Today highlight dangers

The Wall Street Journal astounded many in the green community last week when it launched a series on toxic chemicals with an in-depth page A1 story on endocrine disruptors, which, even in teeny-tiny amounts, muck up the functioning of human bodies, according to an ever-growing body of scientific studies.

Now USA Today is getting in on the game with "Are our products our enemy?" Here, reporter Elizabeth Weise's delightfully melodramatic lead:

Like the glint of a knife in the dark, a laboratory accident in 1998 helped scientists realize that some chemicals commonly used to make life more convenient can be health hazards.

Since what they still call "the disaster" in geneticist Pat Hunt's lab, more scientists have come to suspect that, even in tiny amounts, some of the chemicals that keep our food fresh, our hair stylish, our floors shiny and our fabrics stain-free might be confusing our hormone systems and derailing fetal development.

From what I can discern, there's not much real, breaking news in these stories; rather, the real, breaking news is these stories. Which news outlet will jump on board next?

Let’s save our environment

Funniest thing ever? Possibly.

(Thanks to reader Brian B.)

We Hear Helsinki Is Beautiful This Time of Year

The desertification of southern Europe may be under way With 2003’s deadly European heat wave still lingering in memory, this summer’s spiking temperatures, rampant forest fires, and record droughts along the Mediterranean are increasingly being seen not as freaky aberrations, but signs of global warming. Dozens of fires have burned from Greece to Portugal. Some […]

Britty Twister

Estrogen exposure blamed for upswing in male chest-reduction surgery British men are flocking to clinics for surgery to reduce their man mammaries. Here we pause a moment to savor that sentence … OK, done. U.K. doctors blame increased exposure to female hormones for a reported doubling over one year of the number of operations for […]

Gonarezhou National Park

Writer Robert Neuwirth, author of Shadow Cities, recently traveled the world to write on the "squatter cities" that spring up in the world's largest developing urban areas. His blog has also been chronicling Robert Mugabe's campaign to "drive out the rubbish" in Zimbabwe, Mugabe's term for the government-run destruction of thousands of homes in the country.

Sokwanele is one of the resistance groups that have formed against Mugabe. In their last email (and on their website), they highlight some of the environmental effects of Mugabe's campaign. In addition to the massive human toll, the displaced residents have moved to Gonarezhou National Park, and many have begun poaching the previously protected game and using the grasslands for domesticated animals to graze.

The previously undisturbed ecosystem was part of a plan for a regional Transfrontier National Park, as it borders parks in Mozambique and South Africa. Sokwanele says the invasion of the park by displaced settlers has now scuttled any such plans.

Bottled v. tap

Tom Standage, technology editor of The Economist, writes in the New York Times op-ed pages on the lack of difference between bottled and tap water.

He notes that for less than a quarter of global annual spending on bottled water, clean water and adequate sanitation could be provided for everyone on earth. Standage recommends that instead of buying bottled water, people donate the money to water charities to achieve this goal.

Liberality

Are you worried that our future is a long, grim struggle for remaining fossil-fuel resources, with an ever-widening gap between global have's and have-not's?

Apparently you're worried about all the wrong stuff.

(via TAPPED)

Ha-ha-ha-HA-ha!

Ivory-billed woodpecker skeptics recant, gush about sound recordings “It’s all moot at this point; the bird’s here.” So says Mark B. Robbins, one of the trio of skeptical scientists who had questioned the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker after the species had long been assumed extinct. What changed their minds? The bird’s call. They had […]

We Double-Dog Dare You!

Donate to Grist and you could win a Global Warming Survival Kit When we ask y’all for money, we feel like Ralphie. We’re all, “We want the Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!” And you’re all, “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid.” But we won’t! We know how to use smart environmental […]

Energy bill supporters

Hey look, I found some expressions of support for the energy bill. See if you can discern a theme.