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Climate change linked to rising infertility [APRIL FOOLS]

UPDATE: This is an April Fools' Day post, entirely made up. To the best of our knowledge, your ovaries are blissfully unaware of climate chaos.

Mmm, nothing like some hot scrambled huevos: A new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention details rising infertility rates in America -- and, for the first time, cites global warming as one potential culprit. The report, released earlier this week, says that 17 percent of couples in the U.S. are experiencing difficulty bearing fruit -- a 5 percent jump from 2005. Airborne toxins and even Old Spice body wash have previously been linked to lower fertility, but climate change is a new one. The report says that rising global temperatures, and extreme temperatures in particular, seem to be affecting women's body chemistry in poorly understood ways, thus hampering their ability to conceive and carry a baby to term. It's a controversial theory sure to inspire lots more research and provoke plenty of criticism.

Spelt linked to cancer & other health problems, even as Big Ag muscles in on market [APRIL FOOLS]

Spelt is the ultimate health food, right? Not so fast. New research links it to spleen and kidney cancers. Meanwhile, Monsanto is trying to approve Roundup Ready seeds.

Coal plants don’t create the jobs they promise, study finds

Coal-fired power plants sicken and kill tens of thousands of Americans every year, especially those (generally low-income, often minority) Americans who have the misfortune of living near them. So why would any community allow a coal plant to be built in its midst? Indeed, why would communities pay enormous amounts of money in bribes development […]

Peak Oil, not Libya, is the reason you’re paying more at the pump

The further into the post-carbon age we grind, the more mainstream the notion of peak oil becomes. Long derided because it runs contrary to the only two things more American than football and corn syrup — that would be endless economic expansion and our right to commute 90 minutes a day, should we so choose […]

Is Obama’s weak-sauce energy policy just savvy political Kung-Fu?

For the next couple of years, Obama is playing defense on climate change, and that could explain the fairly tame energy policy he announced yesterday, says Ezra Klein of The Washington Post. Like the Kung-Fu masters of yore, he knows that he cannot hope to defeat his opponents in a frontal assault. These are, after […]

Senator from Louisiana wants to drill for oil in Alaska

David Vitter (R-La.) has 28 cosponsors on a bill in the Senate that would block EPA climate regulations (par for the course), expand offshore oil exploration (how soon we forget), and … open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling. It's the political football that just won't go away. If this country is around […]

Watch a Robot swap out batteries from this electric vehicle [VIDEO]

Electric cars are the only kind that anyone will be able to afford after we run the eff out of oil, but charging them is a pain. Better Place has a Better Idea™ — when your batteries run low, pull into one of their stations and wait a mere three minutes while a robot swaps […]

Reversing roles, farmers sue Monsanto over GMO seeds

Genetically modified seed giant Monsanto is notorious for suing farmers [PDF] in defense of its patent claims. But now, a group of dozens of organic farmers and food activists have, with the help of the not-for-profit law center The Public Patent Foundation, sued Monsanto in a case that could forever alter the way genetically modified […]

White House scuttles rumors it will torpedo EPA regulations

Yesterday, we repeated an Associated Press report which said that President Obama was banding with the GOP to force the EPA to walk the plank — or, well, looking to compromise with the GOP by curtailing EPA's regulatory powers as part of budget negotiations. Shows what we get for trusting the AP. The White House […]

Solar could save Minnesota schools millions

This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. Currently, Minnesota’s public schools spend approximately $84 million per year on electricity costs, money diverted from the classroom. But a bill to make clean, local energy accessible now (CLEAN) could help the state’s public schools use […]