In Mexico town with little water, Coca-Cola is everywhere. So is diabetes. “It doesn’t rain like it used to. Almost every day, day and night, it used to rain.”

By Oscar Lopez and Andrew Jacobs 14 July 2018 SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico (The New York Times) – Maria del Carmen Abadía lives in one of Mexico’s rainiest regions, but she has running water only once every two days. When it does trickle from her tap, the water is so heavily chlorinated, she […]

As inequality grows, so does the political influence of the rich

21 July 2018 (The Economist) – Squeezing the top one percent ought to be the most natural thing in the world for politicians seeking to please the masses. Yet, with few exceptions, today’s populist insurgents are more concerned with immigration and sovereignty than with the top rate of income tax. This disconnect may be more […]

DRC set to reclassify national parks for oil, open Congo Basin rainforest to logging

By Joe Sandler Clarke 19 July 2018 (Greenpeace) – Moves by the disputed President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Joseph Kabila to grant oil and logging licences in the world’s second largest rainforest have thrown efforts to protect the area into disarray, potentially weakening the push to avert the worst consequences of climate change.Congo’s […]

“The Poisoned City” chronicles the water crisis in Flint, Michigan

By Cassie Martin 17 July 2018 (Science News) – America is built on lead. Networks of aging pipes made from the bluish-gray metal bring water into millions of U.S. homes. But when lead, a poison to the nervous system, gets into drinking water — as happened in Flint, Michigan — the heavy metal can cause […]

Trump administration deletes 20 years of critical online medical guidelines – “There is nothing else like it in the world”

By Jon Campbell 12 July 2018 (The Daily Beast) – The Trump Administration is planning to eliminate a vast trove of medical guidelines that for nearly 20 years has been a critical resource for doctors, researchers and others in the medical community.Maintained by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], part of the Department […]

Russia asbestos company makes Trump its poster boy – “Donald is on our side!”

By Olivia Rosane 11 July 2018 (EcoWatch) – Asbestos killed at least 45,221 Americans between 1999 and 2015, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found. But President Donald Trump has long expressed his support for the dangerous mineral currently banned by 65 countries.”If we didn’t remove incredibly powerful fire retardant asbestos & replace it […]

EPA staff say the Trump administration is changing their mission from protecting human health and the environment to protecting industry

By Chris Sellers, Lindsey Dillon, and Phil Brown 6 June 2018 (The Conversation) – The Environmental Protection Agency made news recently for excluding reporters from a “summit” meeting on chemical contamination in drinking water. Episodes like this are symptoms of a larger problem: an ongoing, broad-scale takeover of the agency by industries it regulates.We are […]

Ozone hole mystery: Illegal sales of insulating chemical in China found to be source of rising CFC-11

By Matt McGrath 8 July 2018 (BBC News) – Cut-price Chinese home insulation is being blamed for a massive rise in emissions of a gas, highly damaging to the Earth’s protective ozone layer. The Environmental Investigations Agency (EIA) found widespread use of CFC-11 in China, even though the chemical was fully banned back in 2010. […]

Video: Iceland poachers butcher endangered fin whale – 22 whales slaughtered so far this season

By Albi Deak 6 July 2018Hvalur 9 returns to whaling station with two more endangered fin whales, 9 hours ago. Hvalur 8 arrives at whaling station with two more endangered fin whales, 3 hours ago.Today marks 14 fin whales poached in #Iceland‘s illegal commercial hunt 2018.Two fin whales beached today near the river at Oyrini […]

Graph of the Day: Journalists missing or killed globally, 1992-2018

7 July 2018 (Desdemona Despair) – Journalism has never been a safe profession, but in 2018, it’s more than three times as dangerous as it was 2001. According to data collected by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), murders and disappearances of reporters worldwide have increased from a low of 34 in 2002 to a […]

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial