EPA Releases Names of 150 Secret Chemicals

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Looks like what we don’t know CAN hurt us.

Here’s a little good news for people concerned about public health: the EPA released the names of 150 chemicals, the identities of which had been kept secret, to the public earlier this month. The New York Times describes the effort by the EPA as intended “to reform what it views as a flawed system for regulating toxic substances. It is the second disclosure of its kind this year, after the release of 40 chemicals’ names in March.” For those who aren’t familiar with EPA regulations, chemicals are often allowed to remain secret because they’re essentially assumed to be safe until proven otherwise, and because industry demands they be kept secret for proprietary reasons…

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Energy Poverty: India’s Best Kept Secret

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If you have no electricity in your village, you are energy impoverished.

During a business luncheon with the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) in India for World Environment Day, there was a lot of talk of the steps to take to give India’s economy a green makeover and why it’s important to do so. The speeches by Minister Ramesh and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner were inspiring and made the idea of a green economy concrete and understandable. Something that befuddled me, however, was that there was no mention of energy poverty, or the electrification of rural villages on the agenda. Did I miss something?

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Americans Pessimistic About Income Growth

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Americans tighten belts as they are squeezed by rising prices and stagnant wages.

Consumers are being squeezed on both sides by wages that aren’t increasing and rising prices.  According to survey data by Goldman Sachs, the number of people who believe they will bring home more money one year from now is at its lowest in 25 years.

 

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Random USDA Testing Finds 34 Unapproved Pesticides on Cilantro

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Cilantro tastes so good but may have a plethora of pesticides on it.

Hold the guacamole for just a moment and make sure that your cilantro is organic. Food safety came front and center this week when random USDA testing found 34 different varieties of pesticide residue atop a batch of conventional cilantro…

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Hispanics Comprise Almost Half of All People Sentenced to Federal Prison

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The prison system has many more Hispanics than it did 10 years ago.

Hispanics now comprising half of all people sentenced for felony crimes in the U.S.  Programs like Operation Streamline, institute a “zero tolerance policy” for illegal border crossings where immigration crimes have skyrocketed.

 

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Syria Shuts Down the Internet As Revolt Gains Steam

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The Internet plays an important roll in controlling or directing a revolt.

Internet traffic has come to a halt in Syria after the government blocked Internet services in an attempt to quell a growing revolt in the Middle Eastern nation.

“Starting at 3:35 UTC today, approximately two thirds of all Syrian networks became unreachable from the global Internet,” Internet intelligence firm Renesys reported on its blog today.

“Over the course of roughly half an hour, the routes to 40 of 59 networks were withdrawn from the global routing table.”

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Single Moms at Risk of Poor Health Later in Life

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Stress and financial strain may take toll.

Moms who had children outside of marriage may be at risk for poor health later in life.  Thousands of mothers who participated in a 30-year study, but the ones who had delivered children outside of marriage reported being less healthy when they reached their 40s than the ones who had postponed motherhood until after marriage.

 

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Global War on Drugs Has Failed: Report

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A new report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy has come to the conclusion that the global war on drugs has failed. The Global Commission, which includes a group of politicians and former world leaders, says the current anti-drug policy has been fueling organized crime, costing taxpayers millions of dollars and causing thousands of deaths.

 

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Do Teachers Have the Right to Video Record Distruptive Students?

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Does a teacher have the right to make a video recording of students without their permission and what privacy rights does a student have in school?

 Where do we draw the line at which public video recording becomes an invasion of privacy?  Even as cell-phone cameras and handheld video recorders proliferate,  public video recording is still murky in the eyes of the law.

 

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Acid Oceans Turn ‘Finding Nemo’ Fish Deaf

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Hearing loss detected in Clown Fish

Clownfish, the spectacular tropical species feted in the movie Finding Nemo, appear to lose their hearing in water slightly more acidic than normal.

At levels of acidity that may be common by the end of the century, the fish did not respond to the sounds of predators.

The oceans are becoming more acidic because they absorb much of the CO2 that humanity puts into the atmosphere…

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Addressing the Problem of Addresses

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Futurist Thomas Frey:  When Hurricane Katrina hit the city of New Orleans the US Post Office was faced with a major dilemma. For countless centuries, the modus operandi for the post office was to deliver mail to a location, and the individuals who lived at that location would stop by and pick up their mail. But following the hurricane, the floods had destroyed all of the “locations”.

 

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Cancer Officially the Number One Cause of Death in China

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Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in China.

China is starting to see the costs of its rapid march towards industrialization.  Air pollution from heavy industry, coal-fired power plants, and numerous factories have saturated the air and now cancer has officially become the number one cause of death.  Almost 25% of deaths in China are now attributed to cancer. The Earth Policy Institute gleaned as much from China’s own Ministry of Health — and tragically but unsurprisingly, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in China.

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