God-awful pollution of India's waters. Do the gods pollute?
Scientists in India, worried about the public health consequences of immersing idols in lakes and rivers, have been looking anew at water pollution. They hope, and perhaps in some cases pray, to harmonise their medical concerns with some people's religious priorities. Most of their research has focused on idols of the elephant-headed god Ganesh, created for the annual Ganesh Chaturthi celebration. Once a fairly quiet, mostly private practice, Ganesh Chaturthi now involves large, public festivals in many parts of the country. Researchers have also looked, a little, at the effects of immersing other idols, especially those of the many-armed goddess Durga. EPA Launches Investigation into Commonly Used Pesticide. The haze of bad judgement is lifting in the EPA--the agency is finally investigating the dangers of atrazine.
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—The U.S. Atrazine: Poisoning the Well. Environmental Issues > Health Main Page > All Health Documents Atrazine Continues to Contaminate Surface Water and Drinking Water in the United States Banned in the European Union and clearly linked to harm to wildlife and potentially to humans, the pesticide atrazine provides little benefit to offset its risks.
In 2009, NRDC analyzed results of surface water and drinking water monitoring data for atrazine and found pervasive contamination of watersheds and drinking water systems across the Midwest and Southern United States. This May 2010 report summarizes scientific information that has emerged since the publication of our initial report and includes more recent monitoring data. The Most Important Organism? Phytoplankton are microscopic ocean plants that form the base of ocean ecosystems; they are so abundant that they are visible from space.
Here, average chlorophyll from 1998 through 2006 is shown in green and indicates areas of high biological productivity. Courtesy SeaWiFS Project/NASA GSFC and GeoEye, Inc. On a recent fossil collecting trip a friend asked, “What do you think is the most important organism on the Earth?” She knew full well I would answer, “Humans!” Nature's sting: The real cost of damaging Planet Earth. 12 October 2010Last updated at 00:08 By Richard Anderson Business reporter, BBC News The global cost of replacing insect pollination is around $190bn every year You don't have to be an environmentalist to care about protecting the Earth's wildlife.
Just ask a Chinese fruit farmer who now has to pay people to pollinate apple trees because there are no longer enough bees to do the job for free. And it's not just the number of bees that is dwindling rapidly - as a direct result of human activity, species are becoming extinct at a rate 1,000 times greater than the natural average. Nature's gift: The economic benefits of preserving the natural world. 24 October 2010Last updated at 19:12 By Richard Anderson Business reporter, BBC News Forests and the insects that live in them provide huge economic benefits.
BP Oil Spill In The Gulf, Two Months Later. BP CEO Tony Hayward can continue to play the blame game and avoid public appearances where he would have to address what has now topped the EXXON Valdez oil spill disaster in 1989 to become the biggest oil spill in US history American history, but there is no denying that oil continues to pour out of BP’s Deepwater Horizon at approximately 60,000 barrels a day, affecting everything from the ecosystem (endangered blue fin tuna and pelicans just to name two out of many), to people (residents of Louisiana and New Orleans, and people whose livelihood depends on the sea).
Water pollution: Obama EPA orders dramatic cleanup of the Chicago River. May 12, 2011|By Michael Hawthorne, Tribune reporter The Obama administration is ordering an ambitious cleanup of the Chicago River, a dramatic step toward improving an urban waterway treated for more than a century as little more than an industrialized sewage canal.
The Underwater Impact of the BP Oil Spill. BP Spills Coffee. River pollution sparks panic water buying in China city. 26 January 2012Last updated at 09:06 Residents in Liuzhou city in southern China have been emptying supermarket shelves of bottled water in panic buying sparked by river pollutants.
Authorities found excessive levels of cadmium dumped into Longjiang River in Hechi City of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region last week, state news agency Xinhua reported. A mining company, Jinhe Mining Co, was found responsible, officials said. Otters return to once-polluted River Mersey. 23 November 2011Last updated at 11:18.
Fracking water pollution in Lancashire 'extremely unlikely' 10 January 2012Last updated at 18:57 Cuadrilla has been carrying out shale gas drilling in Lancashire It is "extremely unlikely" shale gas drilling in Lancashire could contaminate ground water supplies, a leading geologist has said. Campaigners are concerned drilling may pollute drinking water with methane. Professor Mike Stephenson of the British Geological Survey said most experts thought the process, known as fracking, was a "pretty safe activity".
A report last year found it was highly probable fracking caused two small earthquakes in Lancashire. Fracking uses high-pressure liquid pumped deep underground to fracture shale rock and release gas. Test drilling suspended. Yangtze River chemical leak raises concern in China. 8 February 2012Last updated at 09:12 Bottled water in Jiangsu province sold out following a water pollution scare Shanghai authorities are on alert after a chemical leak from a cargo ship polluted the Yangtze River, state-run media report. According to an official statement, the leak was caused by a cargo ship in neighbouring Jiangsu province. Officials said that phenol - an acid compound used to make detergents - entered the river last week.