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Court tosses federal rule that limited air-pollution monitoring
States can enact tougher-than-federal monitoring requirements for air pollution from factories and power plants, after a federal appeals court tossed out a U.S. EPA rule keeping them from doing so. Primary plaintiff Sierra Club celebrated the victory; defendants were the U.S. EPA and the American Petroleum Institute, which should seem like an odd pair, but […]
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The First Law of Conferences
As a conference Q&A session goes on, the chances of a crotchety, long-winded, eccentric old guy standing up and asking a quasi-question that runs on for over five minutes and confuses everyone approaches one.
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One in three schools too close to highways for clean air, study says
One third of American public schools are in an “air pollution danger zone,” researchers at the University of Cincinnati found in a new study to be published in the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. They defined danger zones as areas within a quarter-mile of heavily trafficked highways. Diesel particles and other pollutants from highways […]
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Snippets from the news
• One-third of U.S. schools are in “air pollution danger zone.” • Forever 21 to be built on site of L.A. community garden. • Beehives harbor 70 different pesticides. • Chinese media guidelines: don’t mention carcinogenic water. • Happy World Water Week!
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Umbra on toxins in your body
Dear Umbra, I saw an infomercial late at night about these foot pads that you wear to sleep and they will “remove toxins from your body.” I didn’t know who else to ask, so you win that lottery. Do we actually have that many toxins in our body? And does wearing silly pads on our […]
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Brings back memories
I was working downtown when all this went down — smelled a little tear gas, got escorted out of my building by a gauntlet of fully armored riot police. Looking back, I wish I’d had a better sense of the significance at the time.
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Friday music blogging: The Felice Brothers
FMB apologizes for its long absence. As it happens, FMB’s author enjoyed his seventh anniversary of marriage to his wife not that long ago, and of late this song has seemed a fitting testament to that occasion, indeed to that marriage. It is by the Felice Brothers, from their recent eponymous debut album, which is […]
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Snippets from the news
• Oil and gas leases on Colorado’s Roan Plateau sell for record amount. • High fuel prices mean ramped up drilling and mining. • Climate change, past forest management make western U.S. susceptible to fire. • Electric bikes sell like hotcakes. • Invasive snail could hurt Lake Michigan. • New species of robin found in […]
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Number of ocean dead zones increasing dramatically, study says
As if fish didn’t have enough to worry about, now those near coastal areas are threatened by an unprecedented number of dead zones, says a study being published Friday in the journal Science. The number of dead zones — oxygen-deprived areas that can no longer support marine life — has doubled every decade since the […]
