Author, historian and political commentator Noam Chomsky. (photo: Ben Rusk/flickr)

From Reader Supported News (RSN)

An Excerpt

By Noam Chomsky, Laray Polk, Seven Stories Press

19 April 13

A powerful excerpt from the new book, "Nuclear War and Environmental Catastrophe."

aray Polk: What immediate tensions do you perceive that could lead to nuclear war? How close are we?

Noam Chomsky: Actually, nuclear war has come unpleasantly close many times since 1945. There are literally dozens of occasions in which there was a significant threat of nuclear war. There was one time in 1962 when it was very close, and furthermore, it's not just the United States. India and Pakistan have come close to nuclear war several times, and the issues remain. Both India and Pakistan are expanding their nuclear arsenals with US support. There are serious possibilities involved with Iran - not Iranian nuclear weapons, but just attacking Iran - and other things can just go wrong. It's a very tense system, always has been. There are plenty of times when automated systems in the United States - and in Russia,it's probably worse - have warned of a nuclear attack which would set off an automatic response except that human intervention happened to take place in time, and sometimes in a matter of minutes. That's playing with fire. That's a low-probability event, but with low-probability events over a long period, the probability is not low.

Surfrider Foundation [email protected]

The EPA is proposing to eliminate their Beach Grants Program that funds water testing to protect swimmer safety at beaches across the country. 

Don't let the federal government drown the beach program.   You have the right to know if a day at the beach is going to make you sick!

March 21, 2013

Today, more than 65 per cent of the Peace region has felt the impact of industrial development, leaving little intact habitat for sensitive, endangered species such as caribou to feed, breed or roam. (Credit: Gerry via Flickr)

The New York TImes

By EDWARD WONG

Published: April 1, 2013 

Shanghai in January. Researchers said the toll from China’s pollution meant the loss of 25 million healthy years in 2010.

BEIJING — Outdoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010, nearly 40 percent of the global total, according to a new summary of data from a scientific study on leading causes of death worldwide.

Figured another way, the researchers said, China’s toll from pollution was the loss of 25 million healthy years of life from the population.

For more on this story

By EDWARD WONG

Published: March 21, 2013 

As Pollution Worsens in China, Solutions Succumb to Infighting

Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times

Smog veiled the China Central Television Building in Beijing last week. Air pollution hit record levels in north China last month.

By EDWARD WONG

Published: March 21, 2013 17

BEIJING — China’s state leadership transition has taken place this month against an ominous backdrop. More than 16,000 dead pigshave been found floating in rivers that provide drinking water to Shanghai. A haze akin to volcanic fumes cloaked the capital, causing convulsive coughing and obscuring the portrait of Mao Zedong on the gate to the Forbidden City.So severe are China’s environmental woes, especially the noxious air, that top government officials have been forced to openly acknowledge them. Fu Ying, the spokeswoman for the National People’s Congress, said she checked for smog every morning after opening her curtains and kept at home face masks for her daughter and herself. Li Keqiang, the new prime minister, said the air pollution had made him “quite upset” and vowed to “show even greater resolve and make more vigorous efforts” to clean it up.

From The New York Times  

By HEATHER ROGERS 

Published: June 3, 2007

When Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced his vision of development in New York City over the next 25 years, he highlighted a plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 30 percent. To anyone who has studied the history of power consumption in the United States, his proposal sounded a curious echo. New York, after all, was home to one of the country’s first central power stations, built by Thomas Edison in 1882. No individual deserves more credit, or blame, for America’s voracious electricity consumption than Edison, who conceived not only that generating station but also the notoriously inefficient incandescent bulb and a slew of volt-thirsty devices.

Photo Credit: Nicolás Eduardo Feredjian

From: David Suzuki <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 8:51 AM
Subject: Science Matters: Uruguay’s “poor” president is a unique leader

When bright young idealists share their environmental concerns with me, I encourage them to get involved in politics. That’s where decisions have to be made about the severe ecological problems we face. 

Copied from Reader Supported News

15 JUN 2012: SHARP DIVISIONS EMERGE 
AS RIO+20 NEGOTIATORS SEEK CONSENSUS

From Environment360 - Yale

With the United Nations Rio+20 summit on sustainable development set to open next Wednesday, negotiators from developing nationswalked out of a key working group over disagreements with wealthier nations about funding environmentally responsible development and the transfer of green technology. As negotiators attempted to forge an agreement, the G77 bloc of developing nations, led by China, proposed that wealthy countries finance a global fund for sustainable development with an initial annual budget of $30 billion. But European Union nations said they were unable to afford that because most EU states faced an economic crisis. Luiz Alberto Figueiredo, of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, rejected that argument, saying, “We cannot be held hostage to the retraction resulting from financial crises in rich countries.” As 130 world leaders (with the notable absence of the leaders of the U.S., Britain, and Germany) prepared to arrive, a top Brazilian diplomatlamented the summit’s disparate blocs, saying the traditional north-south divide was only one of many divisions.

From Reader Supported News

By Noam Chomsky, AlterNet

05 June 12

In his penetrating study "Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-Opted Human Rights," international affairs scholar James Peck observes, "In the history of human rights, the worst atrocities are always committed by somebody else, never us" - whoever "us" is.

Almost any moment in history yields innumerable illustrations. Let's keep to the past few weeks.

ENVIRONMENT ON MSNBC

By Joseph Castro, LiveScience Staff Writer

The world's oceans have been warming for more than 100 years, twice as long as previously believ ed, new research suggests.

The findings could help scientists better understand the Earth's record of sea-level rise, which is partly due to the expansion of water that happens as it heats up, researchers added.

Quoted from Hosted News 

By Yana Marull (AFP) 

BRASILIA, Brazil —

The upcoming Rio conference on sustainable development must yield a commitment to manage the world economy in a way that respects the environment and fights poverty, a Brazilian official says.

"I believe that Rio+20 will deliver the instruments to make sustainable development a paradigm for the economy, not just for the environment," Andre Correa do Lago, the host country's pointman for the June 20-22 summit, said in an interview with AFP.

ENVIRONMENT 360

China has undertaken ambitious reforestation initiatives that have increased its forest cover dramatically in the last decade. But scientists are now raising questions about just how effective these grand projects will turn out to be.

by JON R. LUOMA

UN WIRE

On World Water Day, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization warned that 70% more water would be needed to produce enough food for the planet's growing population by 2050, while the world body's World Water Development Report projected that the need could be even greater if crop yields and production aren't drastically improved. Two-thirds of all people could be living under water-stressed conditions in about a decade, according to the FAO. FOR MORE PRESS AlertNet (3/21) 

From UN Wire:  March 12, 2012:  News covering the UN and the world

Much of world to experience "water stress"

"In many countries water availability for agriculture is already limited and uncertain, and is set to worsen," concludes the latest UN World Water Development Report, which finds that farmers will need one-fifth more water by 2050 to meet increasing demands for food by a population estimated to reach 9.3 billion. Today, more than 80% of used water goes uncollected and untreated, an issue slated to be discussed at this week's World Water Forum. Bloomberg(3/12), The Independent (London) (3/12)

Investors set sights on climate change at UN conference

More than 400 representatives of large institutional investors met Thursday at the United Nations to reconsider climate change from a business perspective on the heels of 5% growth in green energy investment, to $260 billion, in 2011. "The carbon-burning economy is tomorrow's Rust Belt. Your job, it seems to me, is to invest in the Microsofts and Googles of the green economy," Roland Rich, head of the UN Democracy Fund, told investors, who control a collective $26 trillion worldwide. The conference was convened by the UN, the United Nations Foundation and the Ceres coalition.

By KAREN NELSON - [email protected]

HORN ISLAND -- The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies has confirmed that a fourth baby dolphin has washed ashore on Horn Island,

To read more click here

News 24

2011-02-19 14:10

From the Los Angeles Times.

On Sunday (September 19,2010), the BP well that fed the largest offshore oil spill
in America's history was officially pronounced "dead," with no chance of further leaks. While we are happy to report that a single drop will never again leak from this well, we find it appropriate to break down the Gulf oil spill by the numbers.

http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/35585/russia-to-see-relief-from-dead.asp

The deadly spell of heat and smog will finally come to an end this week across western Russia.

BBC NEWS

Moscow under smog health warning as wildfires burn

6 August 2010 Last updated at 15:10 ET

Original Article

Russian health officials are warning people in Moscow to stay inside and avoid physical exertion as smog from the worst wildfires in modern Russian history smothers the city.

Something on the BP Oil Spill, if you are following it at all.

I found this news article interesting - but it is a little long.  Maybe you would just want to skim it and see what you think.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Kemp’s ridley sea turtle lay belly-up on the metal autopsy table, as pallid as split-pea soup but for the bright orange X spray-painted on its shell, proof that it had been counted as part of the Gulf of Mexico’s continuing “unusual mortality event.”

China Fears Consumer Impact on Global Warming

By KEITH BRADSHER