The United States and the European Union have taken a “criminal path” by contributing to an explosive rise in global food prices through using food crops to produce biofuels, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food said today.At a press conference in Geneva, Jean Ziegler of Switzerland…
This Chris Kelly headline says it all: America: #1 in Bibles. #37 in Infant Mortality. Here's an excerpt from Kelly's Huffpo article: Europeans are feeling pretty smug lately, with their sturdy currency, "health care," and rising rates of life expectancy, but there's one area where we kick their ass: American…
What? The White House is endangering us by withholding information?
This is getting to be a familiar story, right? Here’s the typical plot: There’s something going on that poses a serious risk to Americans, and the White House decides to protect big corporations rather than protect the people at risk.
This time, the protected industry consists of chemical manufacturers. The victims are American citizens, many of them recalcitrant admirers of the Bush Administration. Here’s an excerpt of the article by the Associated Press:
The Bush administration is undermining the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to determine health dangers of toxic chemicals by letting non-scientists have a bigger – often secret – role, congressional investigators say in a report obtained by The Associated Press.
The administration’s decision to give the Defense Department and other agencies an early role in the process adds to years of delay in acting on harmful chemicals and jeopardizes the program’s credibility, the Government Accountability Office concluded.
At issue is the EPA’s screening of chemicals used in everything from household products to rocket fuel to determine if they pose serious risk of cancer or other illnesses.
How many people are dying out there because they have been exposed to common chemicals of which most people don’t know of the dangers? How many of those people are children? Every time I hear of another person getting cancer (especially when I hear of a young child getting cancer), I wonder whether it’s because he or she has been exposed too …
I'm not a big fan of big Pharma. There's a good reason for my attitude. Many drug companies are selling hype rather than bona fide drugs. And some of those big drug companies have been caught outright lying. Merck has already been shown to have killed tens of thousands of…
Tell them what Architecture 2030 says about coal:
Because coal is the only fossil fuel plentiful and supposedly cheap enough to push the planet to 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Because reaching 450 ppm (or possibly less) triggers potentially irreversible glacial melt and sea level rise.
Because 53% of Americans live in and around coastal cities and towns and, beginning with just one meter of sea level rise, many of these cities and towns will be inundated.
Scientists are forewarning that at approx. 450 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere, we will trigger potentially irreversible glacial melt and sea level rise “out of humanity’s control.” We are currently at 385 ppm, and are increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 at approx. 2 ppm annually. At this growth rate, we will reach 450 ppm in 2035 . . .
In the US, there are over 600 existing coal plants and 151 new coal plants in various stages of development.
Tell them that there is a smarter and better way. And a cleaner way. Tell them that mining coal is not only ugly, it’s dangerous for miners and everyone else.
Tell them to take a close look into a train car full of coal (as I did yesterday) and to ask themselves if coal looks like the fuel of the future.
I thought about coal as I noticed a train loaded with coal go by (I took these photos). I thought about how little most people know …
