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Top ten toxic chemicals suspected to cause autism and learning disabilities
ScienceDaily (Apr. 25, 2012) — An editorial published April 25 in the journal calls for increased research to identify possible environmental causes of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders in America's children and presents a list of ten target chemicals including which are considered highly likely to contribute to these conditions. Philip Landrigan, MD, MSc, a leader in children's environmental health and Director of the Children's Environmental Health Center (CEHC) at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, co-authored the editorial, entitled "A Research Strategy to Discover the Environmental Causes of Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities," along with Luca Lambertini, PhD, MPH, MSc, Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai and Linda Birnbaum, Director of the National Institute OF Environmental Health Sciences. The editorial was published alongside four other papers -- each suggesting a link between toxic chemicals and autism.
Sean Gardner / Reuters Barges sit along the banks of the Mississippi River in Vicksburg, Mississippi in this file photo taken May 13, 2011. Fifty-five percent of river and stream lengths are in poor condition for aquatic life, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Tuesday in an unprecedented survey of U.S. Waterways. By Ian Simpson, Reuters
EPA: More than half of U.S. rivers unsuitable for aquatic life
There Is Little Hope Left of Keeping Global Temperature in the 'Safe' Zone - Climate Desk
"The prospects of keeping climate change below that [two-degree goal] are fading away," says Pieter Tans, leader of NOAA's greenhouse-gas measurement team. Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory (AP) The chances of the world holding temperature rises to two degrees Celsius -- the level of global warming considered "safe" by scientists -- appear to be fading fast, with U.S. scientists reporting the second-greatest annual rise in CO2 emissions in 2012. Carbon dioxide levels measured at at Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii jumped by 2.67 parts per million (ppm) in 2012 to 395 ppm, said Pieter Tans, who leads the greenhouse gas measurement team for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) .
Remembering Elinor Ostrom, Nobel Laureate : Planet Money
Elinor Ostrom in January 2011. Raveendran / AFP/Getty Images Elinor Ostrom, the only woman ever to win an economics Nobel, died today at age 78.Energy & Sustainability :: News :: May 23, 2012 :: :: Email :: Print Although there is an urban legend that the world will end this year based on a misinterpretation of the Mayan calendar, some researchers think a 40-year-old computer program that predicts a collapse of socioeconomic order and massive drop in human population in this century may be on target By Madhusree Mukerjee Image: flickr/Alexey Kudenko Remember how Wile E. Coyote, in his obsessive pursuit of the Road Runner, would fall off a cliff?
Apocalypse Soon: Has Civilization Passed the Environmental Point of No Return?
Designers of a food forest in Seattle want to make blueberry picking a neighborly activity. iStockphoto.com If you're a regular reader of The Salt, you've probably noticed our interest in foraging. From San Francisco to Maryland , we've met wild food experts, nature guides and chefs passionate about picking foods growing in their backyards. Now, Washington state has jumped on the foraging bandwagon with plans to develop a 7-acre public plot into a food forest. The kicker?
Seattle's First Urban Food Forest Will Be Open To Foragers : The Salt
18 January 2012 Last updated at 16:56 ET House Speaker, John Boehner said: "Republicans in congress will continue to push this because it is good for our country" The US state department has formally recommended the rejection of a controversial crude oil pipeline. The state department denied a permit for the 1,600-mile (2,700km) Keystone XL pipeline, saying it had insufficient time to review the plans.
US rejects Keystone XL Canada oil sands pipeline
1 January 2012 Last updated at 19:55 ET By Justin Rowlatt BBC News, Amazonia For years, the story told about the Amazon has been one of destruction - the world's largest rainforest, a region of amazing biodiversity, key to the fight against climate change, being remorselessly felled. But that is no longer the whole truth. The Environment Agency special ops team gathered in a sultry town right on the southern edge of the Amazon. A group of officers, men and women, were relaxing in the shade of a majestic mango tree outside their offices. They were smoking and chatting.
Saving the Amazon: Winning the war on deforestation
Pipeline Inspector-Turned Whistleblower Calls Keystone XL a Potential "Disaster"
Mike Klink : Let’s be clear — I am an engineer; I am not telling you we shouldn’t build pipelines. We just should not build this one. By forcing the White House to make a decision on the politically and environmentally-toxic Keystone XL pipeline as part of an agreement reached in December to extend the payroll tax cut, Republicans are being lambasted by environmental groups for undercutting the federal environmental review process. Now a whistleblower is claiming that the company overseeing the development of the proposed project, TransCanada, also has a track record of undercutting quality at the expense of the environment — further calling into question the decision by Congress to prevent a new federal environmental impact study for Keystone XL. Mike Klink is a former inspector for Bechtel, one of the major contractors working on TransCanada’s original Keystone pipeline, completed in 2010.by Rolf Schuttenhelm, cross-posted from Bits of Science The results of studies that try to quantify the effects of climate change on biodiversity loss — which include damage to the micro scale level of subspecies and genetic variation — are perhaps most shocking. When, however, you focus on the response to climate change at the macro level , the ecosystem level, you get a better understanding of what is one of the major drivers of that biodiversity loss: forced migrations.
NASA: Climate Change May Flip 40% of Earth's Major Ecosystems This Century
The brutal logic of climate change mitigation
Grist does not support alcohol as a means to deal with problems. Nor does it support trading climate change mitigation for economic growth. In my last post , I discussed a new peer-reviewed paper by climate scientists Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows. It paints a grim picture: The commonly accepted threshold of climate “safety,” 2 degrees C [3.6 degrees F] temperature rise over pre-industrial levels, is now properly considered extremely dangerous ; even 2 degrees C is drifting out of reach, absent efforts of a scale and speed beyond anything currently proposed; our current trajectory is leading us toward 4 or 6 (or 8 or 10) degrees C, which we now know to be a potentially civilization-threatening disaster. Like I said, go ahead and pour yourself a stiff drink.November 16, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here. What's the biggest story of the last several weeks?