Current Stories
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Parents beware: Hazardous toys still on shelves
Los Angeles Times
11/24/2009
Are the toys we're buying any safer than they were a couple of years ago, when millions of playthings were recalled because of high lead levels and other hazards?
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Tacoma brownfield project a US model
Tacoma News Tribune
11/24/2009
HUD is expanding its formerly narrow focus on housing to encompass a larger mandate: developing better communities through better transportation, schools, and environment. These principals are exemplified by the new housing being constructed on a Tacoma brownfield.
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EPA cracks down on soil runoff from construction sites
Oregonian
11/24/2009
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today issued new rules to help reduce soil and sediment runoff from construction sites. The rules will begin to take effect in February 2010 and be phased in over four years. They require construction site owners and operators that disturb one or more acres to use best management practices to ensure that soil disturbed during construction activity does not pollute nearby water bodies.
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Fatal attraction in acidifying oceans
BBC News
11/22/2009
Ocean acidification could cause fish to become "fatally attracted" to their predators, according to scientists. A team studying the effects of acidification - caused by dissolved carbon dioxide - on ocean reefs found that it leaves fish unable to smell danger.
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Sewer pollution spills into waterways
New York Times
11/23/2009
More than 9,400 of the nation's 25,000 sewage systems have reported dumping untreated or partly treated human waste, chemicals and other hazardous materials into rivers and lakes and elsewhere. As cities have grown rapidly across the nation, many have neglected infrastructure projects and paved over green spaces that once absorbed rainwater.
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Climate change speeds up since 1997 Kyoto accord
Seattle Times
11/23/2009
Since the 1997 Kyoto international accord to fight global warming, climate change has worsened and accelerated - beyond some of the grimmest warnings made back then.
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Do it for the polar bears!
Washington Post
11/22/2009
For marketers, climate guilt isn't the easiest thing to sell. Part of the audience thinks climate change is fake, fuzzy or too far in the future to care about. And another segment of the audience believe in climate change so fervently that they're too paralyzed or resigned to respond to new messages. So can you change all these minds with an ad?
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Views: Try spending less, giving more
Oregonian
11/22/2009
For three years now, families and churches - including many in Portland - have given more than 300 communities clean drinking water in an attempt to take back Christmas by worshiping fully, spending less, giving more and loving all.
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Shoppers buy green despite tough economy
Reuters
11/22/2009
Despite the worst US recession in decades, sales of organic and sustainable products have continued to grow, experts say, with shoppers willing to spend a few more dollars in a bid to become more green.
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Canada needs 40 years to stabilize greenhouse gases
Kelowna.com
11/22/2009
Acting on climate change is urgent, but Canada needs 40 years to succeed in its own part of a global plan to stabilize the emissions that are warming the atmosphere, the country's top environment official said.
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Views: The Senate’s duty on climate
New York Times
11/22/2009
We cannot rewrite the Bush years any more than we can persuade the Chinese of the merits of a binding treaty to control greenhouse gases. What the United States can do is assume responsibility for its own emissions, and this the US Senate has manifestly failed to do.
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Review: An inconvenient solution
The Nation
11/22/2009
Occasionally, truth be told, Al Gore's book Our Choice verges on the nerdy. Taken as a whole, however, this is the most comprehensive and well-informed survey anyone has ever done of what we need to do to get off fossil fuel, writes Bill McKibben.
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Infuriated mom: Why can't I protect my body?
Seattle Post Globe
11/18/2009
Kim Radtke of Seattle was pregnant with her now nearly three-week-old son when tests detected in her blood 11 chemicals, including mercury.
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Cleanup slows of mining Superfund site in Oregon
Oregonian
11/19/2009
Bureaucratic snags threaten to slow cleanup of the state's dirtiest abandoned mine, a Superfund site in southern Oregon that leaches 5 million gallons of fish-killing, acid rock drainage into nearby creeks each year.
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Physicians detail health hazards from coal
Oregonian
11/18/2009
A new report from the advocacy group Physicians for Social Responsibility concludes that pollutants from coal-fired power plants contribute to four of the five leading causes of mortality in the US: heart disease, cancer, stroke, and chronic lower respiratory diseases. Coal plants still provide about 40 percent of the electricity used in OR and nearly 20 percent in WA.
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Study shows toxins present at birth
KUOW
11/17/2009
Pregnant women are often extra careful to avoid toxic products, like certain plastics and chemicals in household cleaners. But a new study of West Coast mothers shows those efforts only go so far. Babies are born already exposed to toxins linked to serious health problems.
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Senate to put off climate bill until spring
Wall Street Journal
11/17/2009
Senate Democratic leaders said Tuesday they would put off debate on a big climate-change bill until spring, in a sign of weakening political will to tackle a long-term environmental issue at a time of high unemployment and economic uncertainty.
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Paying more for flights eases guilt, not emissions
New York Times
11/17/2009
One of the first travel companies to offer airline customers the option of buying so-called carbon offsets to counter theit planet-warming emissions has canceled the program. While it might help travelers feel virtuous, the offsets were not helping to reduce global emissions and might even encourage people to travel more.
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Health group finds high lead levels in toys
Seattle Times
11/17/2009
Children's toys carrying the Barbie and Disney logos have turned up with high levels of lead in them, according to a California-based advocacy group - a finding that may give consumers pause as they shop for the holiday season.
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A Q&A with Al Gore
Seattle Times
11/17/2009
On a book tour in Seattle, former Vice President Al Gore weighs in on the Copenhagen climate summit, Obama's efforts so far, the prospects for US legislation, pseudo-science and garden-variety denial.
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Official: Canada climate change laws years away
CBC BC
11/17/2009
The federal environment minister says it may be a few years before Canada tables regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Jim Prentice said the world has to first negotiate a new climate change treaty and Canada and the United States must finish their continental agreement on the same issue.
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Views: We need another carbon tariff
Toronto Globe and Mail
11/18/2009
A carbon tariff is an indispensable component of any economically viable carbon policy that Western economies must ultimately adopt. A carbon tariff is an indispensable component of any economically viable carbon policy that Western economies must ultimately adopt.
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Cleaner chlorine plants may be creating a mercury glut
Washington Post
11/17/2009
Cleaner chlorine plants may indirectly be creating an excess of toxic metal.
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Low-emission locomotives a boost to public health
Washington Post
11/17/2009
A new crop of "ultra-low emission" short-haul locomotives could have significant public health benefits, according to rail industry officials and federal health experts, who suggest that they could help decrease the risk of cancer and heart and respiratory disease for people living near rail yards.
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Experts question Hanford's waste treatment plant
KPLU
11/17/2009
The Obama Administration says it plans to appoint a blue ribbon panel soon to determine the fate of the nation's radioactive waste.
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