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Climate Health

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  • Eliminating soot would save 2.5 million lives a year, slow climate change

    “Black carbon," the product of incomplete combustion of everything from wood to diesel fuel, isn’t just something you put on Mary Poppins chimney sweeps to make them look picturesque. It also contributes to climate change, and it will turn your lungs into something from an anti-smoking PSA faster than you can ask for just one more spoonful of sugar. The flip side is that we could save a lot of lives with just a little cleanup.

    Christopher Mims Health

  • Defending EPA: Sen. Ben Cardin, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, and me at Netroots Nation

    Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), defender of the EPA.Photo: Edward KimmelThe EPA is under full-scale assault. Republicans are working furiously to defund the agency and block or weaken its upcoming regulations on greenhouse gases, toxic hazardous emissions, sulfur dioxide, coal ash, and mountaintop-removal mining. (For more on those rules, see my series “Power Struggle.”) And they […]

    David Roberts Health

  • Mark Ruffalo wants you to stand up to hydrofracking

    Actor Mark Ruffalo, who lives in a rural New York town on the Delaware River with his family, is not one of those celebrities who parachutes into a random political cause and starts ignorantly pontificating about solutions. He has been actively involved with efforts to keep potentially disastrous hydrofracking practices out of New York State […]

    Sarah Goodyear Health

  • Critical List: Arizona wildfire spreads; Roundup causes birth defects

    The wildfire in Arizona is now the second-largest in the state's history and is growing. Enviros are turning on Obama. Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt said yesterday the president hadn't parried Republican attacks and lacked vision on the conservation. And this was in advance of a speech he's giving today that fleshes out this argument. […]

    Sarah Laskow Health

  • California could ban Styrofoam

    Takeout in California will never be the same. The state's legislature is halfway to forbidding restaurants and vendors from packing their products in Styrofoam containers: the California Senate's on board, and the House is supposed to vote on the measure by the end of the summer. The problem (besides that Styrofoam is an evil, atmosphere-killing […]

    Sarah Laskow Health

  • Perilous pipeline: Will Hillary Clinton give the OK to a massive tar-sands pipeline?

    Oil refineries outside Channelview. Do we really need to add a tar-sands pipeline to the mix?Photo: KM&G-MorrisWill Hillary Clinton put the desires of a giant oil corporation ahead of the needs and health of low-income communities and communities of color? Will anyone else in the Obama administration stand up and stop her? With the State […]

    Karla Land Health

  • Haley Barbour pins the BP oil spill on a sad bird

    Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour thinks the disastrous economic effects of the Gulf oil spill were the fault of BP, where “BP” stands for “brown pelican”: So people saw on TV the same brown pelican coated with looked like 3 inches of oil, I mean, looked like a chocolate pelican. And they showed it every hour, […]

    Jess Zimmerman Health

  • Let’s point and laugh at the United States’ weeny little pollution taxes

    Awwwwww, look at the teeny little bar graph representing U.S. pollution taxes! I bet everybody tells the U.S. it's "average," but it's clearly not. Don't worry, America; it's not how big it is, it's what you do with it! And we … use it to fund wars, I guess? 

    Jess Zimmerman Health

  • Sarah Palin loves the smell of emissions in the morning

    Sarah Palin is still being coy about whether she's going to run for president, but as usual, she's enjoying whatever attention she can get. Her latest stunt: Hopping on the back of a Harley to ride with 400,000 bikers through D.C., like she was Hell's own angel. Palin's take on the ride? Pollutalicious! "I love […]

    Jess Zimmerman Health

  • Critical List: No more nuclear power in Germany; angry moose attack

    Germany plans to close its nuclear reactors by 2022. Electricity generation in 2010 created more carbon emissions than ever before. Canada just looooves tar sands. So much that the country sorta kinda forgot to mention to the U.N. that pollution from the oil-sands industry increased by 20 percent in 2009. European countries are banning imported […]

    Sarah Laskow Health