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Kill it
The Guardian‘s excellent Fred Pearce: “Time to bury the ‘clean coal’ myth.” It is, of course, oxymoronic. Coal is about acid rain and peasouper smogs, asthma and mercury contamination, radioactive waste emissions and ripping apart mountains, killing trees, lung cancer and, of course, global warming. Yup.
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Some 10,000 endangered-turtle eggs seized in Malaysia
About 10,000 eggs from endangered green and hawksbill sea turtles were seized in Malaysia this week, though the eggs are believed to be from the Philippines. If the eggs haven’t been damaged too much, some of them may still be able to hatch in a nature reserve, officials said.
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Dueling NYT op-eds
David Brooks: The lesson here is that we have a right to be skeptical of so-called stimulus packages. The Federal Reserve can effectively stimulate the economy. There are certain automatic government programs, like unemployment insurance, which also do it. But the history of the past century suggests that politically designed, ad hoc stimulus packages rarely […]
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Friday music blogging: Blitzen Trapper
It’s late, but it’s Friday, and a man’s gotta music blog what a man’s gotta music blog. Blitzen Trapper is an indie band out of Portland, Ore. Their critic-beloved hit of last year, Wild Mountain Nation, was a mix of rustic americana twang and LSD freakout, a little heavy on the freakout. This year’s follow-up […]
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Fungus associated with mass bat die-off identified
A cold-weather-loving white fungus associated with huge bat die-offs in the U.S. Northeast has been identified by scientists, but its role in over 100,000 bat deaths in the region is still poorly understood. “Essentially, hibernating bats are getting moldy as they hang from their cave ceiling,” said lead author David Blehert. “It’s decimating the cave-bat […]
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As gas prices go down, bad driving habits go up
Those who don’t learn from history, blah blah blah.
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Feds seek injunction stopping L.A., Long Beach clean-truck effort at ports
The Federal Maritime Commission voted this week to seek an injunction in federal court to halt portions of California’s program to clean up older, dirty trucks at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach — the nation’s busiest. In a statement explaining its position, the commission said that portions of the cleaner-truck program, “are […]
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High metals content found in some European wines
A study of the metals content of a range of wines from 15 countries found worrisome levels of copper, manganese, and other metals in both red and white wines from France to Hungary. High levels of certain metals in one’s diet have been linked to heart disease, diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis, and regular consumption of […]
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When it rains, tailing ponds above Lima to contaminate drinking water
Peru’s government warned this week that when the rainy season arrives, tailing ponds housing tons of mining waste will likely be destabilized and pour contaminated waste into a nearby river that’s a main source of drinking water for the country’s capital.
