How Nestlé gets away with pumping California’s water for next to nothing – ‘They’re converting a public resource into private profit’

By David Dayen12 August 2016 (Los Angeles Magazine) – To reach Well Complex 7, you must wind along Highway 18 as it rises 5,642 feet above sea level through the San Bernardino National Forest, the green mountains framing the sprawl of the Inland Empire. Near the burg of Rimforest, you park on the shoulder and […]

British physicist Brian Cox takes Australia Senator Malcolm Roberts to task for global warming denial

15 August 2016 (ABC) – There was a climate change showdown on Q&A last night when Professor Brian Cox and One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts were guests on the panel. Here’s the best bits from their exchanges for you. The night began with an audience question to the British physicist, asking him to address Senator […]

Scientific American: Donald Trump’s lack of respect for science is alarming

17 August 2016 (Scientific American) – Four years ago in these pages, writer Shawn Otto warned our readers of the danger of a growing antiscience current in American politics. “By turning public opinion away from the antiauthoritarian principles of the nation’s founders,” Otto wrote, “the new science denialism is creating an existential crisis like few […]

Amid epic drought, villagers bitter over Zimbabwe ethanol plant

By Andrew Mambondiyani28 July 2016 (mongabay.com) – Lyben Minyizeya’s homestead in Chisumbanje in eastern Zimbabwe resembles a dumpsite for disused tractors and other agricultural equipment. The broken and rusty machinery reminds him of the good old farming days. In this farming community near the border with Mozambique, it is sizzling hot in summer. Baobab, acacia, […]

June deforestation in Brazilian Amazon doubled over same period in 2015

[Translation by Bing Translator.] 22 July 2016 (Imazon) – In June 2016, SAD detected 972 square kilometers of deforestation (the total destruction of forest for other alternative uses of the soil) in the Amazon, with a cloud coverage of 16% of the territory. This represented an increase of 97% over June 2015 when deforestation amounted […]

15 fire-linked firms escape prosecution in Indonesia’s Riau – ‘The clearing of land for oil palm plantations is still ongoing to this day’

By Philip Jacobson28 July 2016 (mongabay.com) – On July 23 the local police headquarters in the Sumatran province of Riau released SP3 notices related to 15 companies that the Ministry of Environment and Forestry had listed in connection with last year’s fires. A SP3 is an official police document that confirms a case has been […]

Superbugs, sewage, and scandal at the Rio Olympics – ‘Untreated hospital waste is the probable cause of waterborne superbacteria, but chemical waste from factories is another culprit’

By Nika Knight1 August 2016 (Common Dreams) – A biology professor has simple advice for athletes and tourists descending on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the Olympics’ start on Friday: “Don’t put your head underwater.” The wire service adds that superbugs—bacteria resistant to most forms of antibiotics—were not the only cause for great concern. Shockingly […]

Australia government about-face on climate science is the least it could do – ‘It doesn’t do anything to improve Australia’s climate science so much as not ruin it as much’

[cf. Australia climate science to be gutted as CSIRO swings jobs axe – ‘It’s a catastrophic reduction in our capacity to assess present and future climate change’, CSIRO cuts to climate science are against the public good, and An open letter to the Australian Government from more than 2800 climate scientists.] By Andrew P Street […]

Monbiot: The climate crisis is already here – but no one’s telling us

By George Monbiot3 August 2016 (The Guardian) – What is salient is not important. What is important is not salient. The media turns us away from the issues that will determine the course of our lives, and towards topics of brain-melting irrelevance. This, on current trends, will be the hottest year ever measured. The previous […]

U.S. hate groups on the rise again – Texas has most of any state

By Molly Evans2 August 2016 (KUT) – There are 892 active hate groups in the U.S. In Texas, there are 84 — the most of any other state, according to an interactive U.S. map from Southern Poverty Law Center. SPLC gathered the data from hate group publications and websites, citizen and law enforcement reports, field […]

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