Michael Bloomberg points to the lie of “clean coal”

According to this article in The Nation, Michael Bloomberg has donated $50 million to the Sierra Club for the purpose of taking coal plants offline and replacing them with renewable fuel sources and conservation:

Bloomberg stood in 100-degree heat on Thursday morning outside the GenOn power plant in Alexandria, Virginia. Joined by Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune, Bloomberg said he hoped his philanthropic contribution would improve public health both at the local level—by reducing emissions of the mercury, dioxin and other pollutants that are released when coal is burned—and at the global level, by limiting the severity of climate change. “If we are going to get serious about reducing our carbon footprint in the United States, we have to get serious about coal,” said Bloomberg, according to his prepared remarks. “Coal is a self-inflicted public health risk, polluting the air we breathe, adding mercury to our water, and [is] the leading cause of climate disruption.”

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Annie Leonard warns us about toxic cosmetics

Well-informed Annie Leonard (The Story of Stuff) is back with a new video on the completely unregulated toxic crap many manufacturers pump into the shampoos and cosmetics we use. The new video is called "The Story of Cosmetics." It's an important story that touches a theme common to all too many of today's tragedies: The unwillingness of the federal government to regulate business that feed large amounts of money into the the campaigns of politicians.

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Climate change meets crushing population: The story of Bangladesh

National Geographic explored the ways that an extremely crowded country copes with rising sea levels in the May, 2011 issue. Stunning story about Bangladesh loaded with daunting statistics, including incredible photography.

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Penance At Other’s Expence: The Hypocrisy of Anti-Choice

Rick Santorum exudes an unbelievable hypocrisy over abortion.  You can read the article here. Basically, Mr. Santorum has it in mind to use the law to prohibit a medical procedure his wife had to go through in order to save her life.  As the piece makes clear, in October of 1996, Karen Santorum underwent an abortion in the 19th week of pregnancy in order to save her life from an infected fetus.  She had a 105 degree temperature.  She would have died without the procedue. Santorum would make that option illegal.  Basically, his position seems to be that sacrificing his wife for the fetus would be his choice now.  This overlooks the fact that had they not done the procedure, the fetus would not have survived, either.  He would have lost both.  Sacrifices to his conscience, which seems incapable of the kind of triage humans must make all the time. Well and good, some people just can’t go there.  But this man is running for president.  He intends that his personal inability to cope be made a national policy of denying anyone the choice of coping. [More . . . ]

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