Archive for the 'Environment' Category
Oil Spill On Blackfeet Reservation
July 21st, 2011Via: ReedPerry: A break in an oil collection pipeline on the eastern prairie of the Blackfeet Reservation has led to a seepage of crude that has been flowing approximately one mile over land and into the Cutbank river. Tribal officials received word of the spill on Tuesday, but it remains unclear when, or why the […]
Famine in Somalia
July 21st, 2011Via: Guardian: By officially declaring parts of Somalia to be in the grip of famine, the UN will be hoping to galvanise governments and the public into action to address the food crisis in east Africa. The UN estimates that 12 million in the region are now in need of emergency help and warns that […]
Did the USDA Just Deregulate All New Genetically Modified Crops?
July 18th, 2011Via: Mother Jones: In a surprise move, the agency green-lights Roundup Ready lawn grass—and perhaps much, much more. It’s a hoary bureaucratic trick, making a controversial announcement on the Friday afternoon before a long weekend, when most people are daydreaming about what beer to buy on the way home from work, or are checking movie […]
Japan’s ‘Throwaway’ Nuclear Workers
July 18th, 2011Via: Reuters: A decade and a half before it blew apart in a hydrogen blast that punctuated the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant was the scene of an earlier safety crisis. Then, as now, a small army of transient workers was put to work to […]
Beef Contamination Spreads in Japan as Cattle Eat Radiation-Tainted Straw
July 15th, 2011Rice straw. Via: Bloomberg: More beef from cattle in Japan that ate straw tainted by radiation has found its way into the food supply, deepening concern about the safety of meat as the country struggles to contain the spread of the contamination. Cattle at the farm in Asakawa, about 60 kilometers from the crippled Fukushima […]
Fukushima Cleanup Recruits ‘Nuclear Gypsies’ from Across Japan
July 14th, 2011Nuclear Ginza (1995) Part 1 Part 2 Via: Guardian: Four months on from the start of the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, this hot-spring resort in north-east Japan has been transformed into a dormitory for 2,000 men who have travelled from across the country to take part in the clean-up effort 30 miles away […]
Nuclear Ginza (1995)
July 8th, 2011Part 1 Part 2 Research Credit: Eileen
Agent Orange Being Used to Clear Rainforrest in Brazil
July 7th, 2011Via: Treehugger: Agent Orange is one of the most devastating weapons of modern warfare, a chemical which killed or injured an estimated 400,000 people during the Vietnam War — and now it’s being used against the Amazon rainforest. According to officials, ranchers in Brazil have begun spraying the highly toxic herbicide over patches of forest […]
Huge Rare Earth Deposits Found in Pacific
July 4th, 2011Update: Map on Io9 See: A map of future undersea mining facilities. —End Update— Via: Reuters: Vast deposits of rare earth minerals, crucial in making high-tech electronics products, have been found on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and can be readily extracted, Japanese scientists said on Monday. “The deposits have a heavy concentration of […]
Montana: Ruptured Pipeline Spills ‘Unknown’ Amount of Oil Into Yellowstone River
July 3rd, 2011Via: New York Times: An ExxonMobil pipeline running under the Yellowstone River in south central Montana ruptured late Friday, spilling crude oil into the river and forcing evacuations. The pipeline burst about 10 miles east of Billings, coating parts of the Yellowstone River that run past Laurel — a town of about 6,500 people downstream […]
