Rachel's Democracy & Health News back issues from September 2008:
COAL PLANS GO UP IN SMOKE
Sep 04, 2008; ... Environmentalists in the US have halted a huge new wave of coal-fired power stations. What lessons can Europe learn from them? [Rachel's introduction: the grass-roots anti-coal movement in the U.S., described earlier this year by Ted Nace, offers a unique opportunity for toxics activists ...
THE ONCE AND FUTURE CARBOHYDRATE ECONOMY
Sep 04, 2008; ... The carbohydrate economy could transform agriculture as well as energy, reviving producer co-ops, and giving farmers a hedge against voilatile commodity prices. Less than 200 years ago, industrializing societies were carbohydrate economies. In 1820, Americans used two tons of vegetables ...
EARTH AS A SPACE SHIP
Sep 04, 2008; ... [Rachel's introduction: The year after he published this pioneering essay, Kenneth Boulding fleshed out these ideas in his important paper, "The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth."] In the imagination of those who are sensitive to the realities of our era, the earth has become a ...
INEQUALITY KILLS
Sep 04, 2008; ... Politicians take heed: social injustice is, literally, deadly When a report from the World Health Organisation came out a few days ago, the media highlighted an extraordinary fact: that life expectancy in one deprived area of Glasgow is lower than in India, Philippines, Poland, Mexico ...
PUBLIC INPUT IMPROVES ENVIRONMENTAL DECISIONS
Sep 04, 2008; ... EAST LANSING, Mich. - When it comes to environmental issues - anything from cleaning up a polluted river to dealing with Superfund sites - public input can make the process smoother and lead to better outcomes, says a new report from a National Research Council panel. The panel that ...
HURRICANES ARE GETTING FIERCER
Sep 04, 2008; ... Global warming blamed for growth in storm intensity. As this year's Atlantic hurricane season becomes ever more violent, scientists have come up with the firmest evidence so far that global warming will significantly increase the intensity of the most extreme storms ...
STUDY: WOMEN LIVING IN MERCURY'S SHADOW
Sep 04, 2008; ... Midwesterners are better off, but the more money you make could mean higher levels of the toxic metal The nation's first region-by-region analysis of mercury in women's blood shows vast differences based on where they live, with the highest levels found in the Northeast. There, ...
SUSTAINABILTIY REDEFINED
Sep 11, 2008; ... Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) is the weekly voice of the American Chemical Society, which is the professional association for academic and industrial chemists. This high-quality magazine lies near the heart of the establishment and - like the Wall Street Journal - it hires some of ...
SOLAR GRAND PLAN
Sep 11, 2008; ... By 2050 solar power could end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and slash greenhouse gas emissions High prices for gasoline and home heating oil are here to stay. The U.S. is at war in the Middle East at least in part to protect its foreign oil interests. And as China, India and other ...
SILENT STREAMS?
Sep 11, 2008; ... Escalating Endangerment for North American Freshwater Fish: Nearly 40 Percent Now At-Risk Nearly 40 percent of fish species in North American streams, rivers and lakes are now in jeopardy, according to the most detailed evaluation of the conservation status of freshwater fishes in the ...
TODDLERS ABSORB MORE TOXIC CHEMICALS THAN MOTHERS
Sep 11, 2008; ... In a world permeated with chemicals, toddlers' penchant for crawling on floors, chewing on assorted objects and touching everything within reach expose their bodies to a disproportionate amount of toxic pollutants. That's the conclusion of a study released today by the Environmental ...
JASON AND THE SECRET CLIMATE CHANGE WAR
Sep 11, 2008; ... Today the scientific argument about the broad principles of what we are doing to the Earth's climate is over. By releasing huge quantities of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere we are warming the world. Since the early 1990s there has been a furious ...
NEW GERMAN FACILITY BEGINS TESTING CO2 SEQUESTRATION
Sep 11, 2008; ... It is complicated and expensive, but it could ultimately be good for the environment. A German pilot program has now begun testing the safety and usefulness of pumping CO2 emissions underground. A remote spot in Brandenburg has become a popular destination for politicians in the past few ...
WHY THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT CANNOT PREVENT CATASTROPHE
Sep 11, 2008; ... WHY THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT CANNOT PREVENT CATASTROPHE Review of James Gustave Speth, The Bridge at the Edge of the World Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing From Crisis to Sustainability (Yale University Press: 2008; 295 pp. $28). Contemporary capitalism and a habitable ...
POLLUTION LINKED TO OBESITY, NEW STUDY FINDS
Sep 18, 2008; ... Pollution could determine whether a child is fat or not before they have even been born, a new study has found. Exposure to a range of common chemicals before birth increases the chance of a baby to growing up overweight or obese, the research indicates. The study by scientists ...
COMMON PLASTICS CHEMICAL LINKED TO HUMAN DISEASES
Sep 18, 2008; ... London, Sept 16 - A study has for the first time linked a common chemical used in everyday products such as plastic drink containers and baby bottles to health problems, specifically heart disease and diabetes. Until now, environmental and consumer activists who have questioned the ...
CORALS JOIN FROGS AND TOADS AS WORLD'S MOST ENDANGERED
Sep 18, 2008; ... Within one generation, diving on coral reefs could be a very rare holiday opportunity. The first comprehensive review of tropical coral species reveals that over one-quarter reef-building coral species already face extinction. This means corals join frogs and toads as the most threatened ...
HIGH PCB EXPOSURE TIED TO DIABETES RISK
Sep 18, 2008; ... NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who have been exposed to high levels of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) may face an elevated risk of type 2 diabetes, a new study shows. The findings, reported in the journal Diabetes Care, come from a long-term study of Taiwanese adults who, in ...
COULD THE DIABETES EPIDEMIC BE DOWN TO POLLUTION?
Sep 18, 2008; ... On July 10, 1976, a reactor at a chemical plant near the small town of Seveso in northern Italy exploded, sending a toxic cloud drifting into the summer sky. Around 18 square kilometres of land was contaminated with TCDD, a member of the notorious class of industrial chemicals known as ...
CONTAMINATED U.S. SITE FACES 'CATASTROPHIC' NUCLEAR LEAK
Sep 18, 2008; ... One of "the most contaminated places on Earth" will only get dirtier if the US government doesn't get its act together - clean-up plans are already 19 years behind schedule and not due for completion until 2050. More than 210 million litres of radioactive and chemical waste are stored in ...
FEMINIZED TOADS LINKED TO FARMS
Sep 18, 2008; ... Toads living in agricultural areas of Florida are more likely to be feminized than their suburban counterparts. Along the shore of Florida's Lake Okeechobee, male toads seem more like females. Most have ovaries as well as testes, the mottled skin of a female and depleted ...