Climate Health

Why 107-degree overnight temperatures should freak you out

Government conspiracy heat wave or no government conspiracy heat wave, this summer is setting records -- not just record maximum temperatures, but also record minimums. On June 27, Oman recorded the world’s highest ever minimum temperature when the mercury failed to drop below 107.1 degrees F, even overnight. And that’s more important, in a global sense, than the record highs.

States can't be trusted to monitor their own drinking water

Lest you think we were getting all worked up for no reason, here is some evidence that states should not be left to their own devices when it comes to making sure our water is clean.  A GAO report released yesterday found that states were underreporting or misreporting 84 percent of safe drinking water monitoring violations.

Google science fair winner stands up for air quality

Naomi Shah, winner of the Google science fair in the 15-16 age group, isn't just a budding research scientist. She's also an environmentalist. And her project, which focuses on the effects of air quality triggers on asthma sufferers, highlights why other people should be environmentalists too.

Critical List: Republicans vote to give states power over clean water; deer ticks in the Great Lakes

House Republicans voted yesterday to let states decide whether a company is living up to the Clean Water Act or not. The EPA's decision to prevent West Virginia coal companies from dumping waste into rivers prompted the bill to begin with, so it's pretty safe to assume that the bill's not meant to strengthen CWA protections.

The federal government says the cost of carbon is $21 per ton; a group of pro-environment economists says the cost is closer to $900 per ton.

China's feeding its "strategic pork reserve" with soybeans grown in Brazil on environmentally sensitive land.

As Moscow more than doubles in size, it will raze acres of forestland.

Why closing NYC's only nuclear power plant would be a really bad idea

Rawwwrrr! It's a progressive cat-fight! On the one side is New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who wants to shut down the Indian Point nuclear power plant on the Hudson River, just 25 miles north of the Bronx.

On the other side is Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who thinks this would be a really crap idea, mostly because it would mean replacing fully a quarter of the power delivered to NYC with greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil fuel power plants. Also, it would probably lead to brownouts.

How many lives did the EPA just save with coal pollution regulation?

New EPA air pollution standard protects public health

Recognizing that pollution doesn't stop at the border, the rule will reduce power plant emissions of soot and smog that travel downwind across state lines.

Documents show Exxon downplayed time it took to seal Yellowstone spill

ExxonMobil told federal officials and Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer that they had sealed the pipeline leaking oil into the Yellowstone River within 30 minutes. But federal documents show that sealing the pipe took 56 minutes -- almost twice as long as the company originally said.

The company told the AP that the error came about because the Exxon representative who briefed officials was providing information without the benefit of notes. In other words, not really intended to be a factual statement.

Critical List: Republicans plan to defund the environment; no one likes the EPA

House Republicans want to defund all kinds of environmental activity -- the EPA, the Department of the Interior, the Forest Service. You know, just anything having to do with the outside.

And the USDA thinks that bioengineered bluegrass doesn't fall within its regulatory sphere, which means companies could grow the stuff without any regulation.

Exposing mice to air pollution makes them dumber and more depressed.

So it's probably good for everyone that the EPA is putting new regulations on coal-fired power plants that should reduced emissions of sulfur dioxide by 73 percent and nitrogen oxides by 54 percent from 2005 levels. Should Republicans succeed in cutting the agency’s budget yet again, this action could be little more than an empty gesture, though.

Ranchers are clearing the Amazon rainforest with Agent Orange

In Brazil, ranchers are opting to use Agent Orange -- one of the most toxic herbicides ever concocted, infamous for its use as a defoliant and de facto weapon during the Vietnam War -- to clear acres of rainforest. It's illegal to clear the forest, but by spraying swaths of trees with Agent Orange, deployed by helicopter, ranchers stand less chance of detection than if they cleared the land by bulldozing or cutting down trees.