New study warns about toxic chemicals in jewelry
ABC Action News; WXYZ.com
March 3, 2012
(WXYZ) – A new study found a majority of low-cost metal jewelry sold in Michigan stores contain toxic chemicals.
The Michigan Network for Children’s Environmental Health and the Ecology Center tested 99 products from 14 retailers, including Burlington Coat Factory, Target, Big Lots, Claire’s, Glitter, Forever 21, Walmart, H&M, Meijer, Kohl’s, Justice, Icing and Hot Topic. Most of the stores were located in Michigan.
Researchers tested both adult and children’s jewelry for chemicals including lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, bromine, chlorine and flame retardants.
Read more: http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/region/detroit/new-study-warns-about-toxins-in-jewelry#ixzz1p7eUy9cz
A drought in the spring will hit Britain’s birds, beer and potatoes
John Vidal and Fiona Harvey
The Guardian
March 12, 2012
Some of the people most affected by worsening water shortages talk about how drought is impacting on their livelihoods.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/12/drought-spring-birds-beer-potatoes
The season’s new public enemies
Laura Landro
The Wall Street Journal
March 13, 2012
With Trees Shedding Pollen Early, Allergy Sufferers Are in for Unusually Severe Symptoms
Jeffrey Bryant is used to the discomforts of hay fever in spring, when trees normally bloom in his hometown of Louisville, Ky. This year was different: Mr. Bryant felt his symptoms come on with a vengeance when it was still January.
“It’s never been as bad as this and never started as early,” Mr. Bryant says. The 48-year-old computer programmer usually relies on medications to ease his coughing, sneezing and other symptoms. Now, he is working with his doctor to get started on a series of shots that he hopes will control his allergies within a few weeks.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303717304577277791366381560.html
Warm spring, more tornadoes? Meteorologists raise red flags
Ron Scherer
The Christian Science Monitor
March 12, 2012
NEW YORK
As the residents of such tornado-stricken states as Indiana, Alabama, and Kentucky continue to clean-up from last week’s twisters, weather forecasters are warning that this spring could continue to see active weather systems with yet more severe weather. The main driver: a warmer than normal spring, à la 70 degrees in New York City on Monday and 70 degrees in Chicago by Wednesday. By Friday, it is expected to be in the 70s in Sioux Falls, S.D., about 30 degrees above normal.
Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2012/0312/Warm-spring-more-tornadoes-Meteorologists-raise-red-flags
Anti-nuclear demonstrations held in Japan, elsewhere
The Asahi Shimbun
March 12, 2012
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201203120065
Tens of thousands of people across Japan and around the world marked the March 11 anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that precipitated the nuclear disaster last year with rallies to renew calls for the abolition of nuclear power.
In Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, protesters gathered at a baseball stadium. Many wore face masks as a precaution against radiation leaked from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, 60 kilometers away.
Radiation readings at the stadium on Feb. 14 ranged between 0.19 microsievert and 0.69 microsievert per hour.
Kenzabuo Oe, winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature, addressed the rally, telling the 16,000 or so people gathered that restarting nuclear reactors would be an unethical action that goes against popular will.
A 25-year-old nurse from Shirakawa in the prefecture said she attended the event to “demonstrate my stand against nuclear power, for the sake of the children I intend to have in the future.”
Several farmers from Iitate, a village that lies northwest of the Fukushima plant and which was heavily contaminated, took the rostrum to hammer home a common theme: the perils of nuclear power.
“We should raise our voice to demand, ‘No to nuclear power’ so as not to waste (opportunities created by) the Fukushima accident,” one farmer said.
In Tokyo’s Nagatacho, where political parties are headquartered, some 14,000 demonstrators, according to the organizer, formed a human chain around the Diet building to drive home their call to phase out nuclear power.
Megumi Nemoto, a resident of Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward, said she joined the protest because she opposes moves by the government to restart reactors shut down for maintenance checks.
“Why doesn’t the government think of the possibility of another nuclear accident like the Fukushima disaster in Japan, where a temblor may hit any time?” she asked.
Nemoto, 26, is from Namie in Fukushima Prefecture, part of which is located in the central government-designated 20-kilometer no-entry zone from the plant.
Her family is taking refuge in Minami-Soma, also in the prefecture.
The unprecedented nuclear disaster has prompted many Japanese, including those who had shunned demonstrations in the past, to take to the streets to drive home the message to the government.
Hiroko Takai, 68, said it was the first time she had taken part in a rally.
Takai, a resident of the capital’s Koto Ward who is originally from Hiroshima and whose father is a hibakusha, said: “I used to think the use of nuclear power for peaceful purposes should be a separate issue (as opposed to possession of nuclear weapons). But the nuclear accident made me aware that nuclear power plants are not safe.”
Now that a year has passed since the nuclear disaster, some participants noted that ordinary citizens seem less concerned about the issue than they did before.
A 40-year-old man living in Tokyo who joined the human chain with his elementary school-age child said he feels that fewer people are joining protest rallies, compared with the immediate aftermath of the disaster.
“If we stop taking protest action now, we will merely end up where we were before,” he said. “I am going to continue to do what I can.”
Before they formed a human chain, the protesters marched in front of the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the disabled plant, in central Tokyo. The protesters held white flags that read “Break with nuclear power.”
Protest rallies were also held in Aomori and Fukui prefectures, home to many nuclear reactors, as well as Hokkaido, Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka.
In Osaka city, two protest rallies drew a combined 15,000 protesters, according to the organizers.
Teruyuki Matsushita , 63, is from Mihama, Fukui Prefecture, which hosts the Mihama nuclear plant operated by Kansai Electric Power Co.
During the rally, he said people living in big cities should raise their voices to help orchestrate change in the nuclear power industry.
Matsushita also said that people in municipalities hosting nuclear plants harbor mixed feelings about the technology.
“What would happen to the employment situation and the finances of local governments if nuclear plants were closed?” he asked. “Local people have two kinds of anxieties, one about playing host to a nuclear plant and another about being without a nuclear plant.”
Demonstrations were held around the world on March 11 as people took to the streets to underscore their opposition to nuclear power.
In France, anti-nuclear demonstrators formed a human chain along the river Rhone, which has the highest concentration of nuclear facilities in Europe. One of the event’s organizers expressed shock and outrage at the Fukushima accident.
Nuclear power represents nearly 80 percent of electricity output in France.
In Britain, a 24-hour demonstration was held in front of the Hinkley Point nuclear station in Somerset, southwestern England, against the British government’s plans to build two large nuclear reactors. The demonstration attracted about 1,000 people.
Makoto Ishiyama, 32, and his wife, Akiko, 32, were invited to the event from Fukushima Prefecture. The couple called for collective efforts to pass on a cleaner planet to future generations.
One of the British protesters, a 47-year-old mother who was joined by her three children, vowed to always stand firm against nuclear power.
In Switzerland, more than 1,000 people marched along a 6-kilomter mountain trail to demand a halt to the Muhleberg nuclear power plant, which went into operation in 1972. Cracks have been found in the reactors.
The Swiss government has already announced it will decommission five reactors by 2034.
In a rally in San Clemente, California, Hirohide Sakuma, 40, and Kyoko Sugasawa, 39, who are both from Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, which shares a border with Fukushima Prefecture, told participants that nuclear power should be abandoned to ensure the safety of local residents.
“If a nuclear accident like the one in Fukushima occurs, this area will become uninhabitable,” Sakuma said at the anti-nuclear gathering on the night of March 10. “Will it be all right with you?”
Sugasawa, who has two daughters, said she now carries a dosimeter.
San Clemente is near the San Onofre nuclear power station, which is said to be most at risk of all U.S. nuclear facilities.
The plant, situated on the coast, was built to withstand a magnitude-7 quake despite its proximity to a major fault line about 8 km away. A breakwater 9.1 meters high has been erected in case tsunami hits, raising concerns among some residents.
Sakuma and Sugasawa were invited by a local group concerned about the safety of the San Onofre plant.
In Taipei, more than 3,000 protesters marched from around 2 p.m. on March 11, calling for an end to nuclear power.
Many protesters were young people who learned of the demonstration on Facebook.
A woman in her 30s said, “We are not sufficiently informed about nuclear power plants in Taiwan.”
Taiwan has three nuclear power plants, two of which are in the vicinity of Taipei and near the coast.
Construction of a fourth plant has already begun.
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Great Barrier Reef ‘at a crossroads’
Rebecca Thurlow
The Wall Street Journal
March 12, 2012
SYDNEY—Australia’s Great Barrier Reef draws millions of tourists to its colorful coral and tropical fish. Recently it has been attracting another kind of visitor—big resources companies looking to export coal and gas.
A Unesco delegation is assessing for environmental impact several liquefied natural gas projects and coal-port expansions, valued at US$80 billion, either under way or planned inshore of the world’s biggest network of coral reefs.
“The Great Barrier Reef is definitely at a crossroads and decisions that will be taken over the next one, two, three years might potentially really be crucial for the long-term conservation,” said Fanny Douvere, …
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204276304577264752026097744.html
Water pollution from farming is worsening, costing billions
Tara Patel
Bloomberg News
March 12, 2012
Water pollution from agriculture is costing billions of dollars a year in developed countries and is set to rise in China and India as farmers race to increase food production, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said.
“Pollution from farm pesticides and fertilizers is often diffuse, making it hard to pin down exactly where it’s coming from,” Kevin Parris, author of a report by the Paris-based organization, said in an interview in Marseille. “In some big agricultural countries in Europe, like parts of France,Spain and the U.K., the situation is deteriorating.”
Farming communities facing crisis over nitrate pollution, study says
Stett Holbrook
California Watch
March 13, 2012
Nitrate contamination in groundwater from fertilizer and animal manure is severe and getting worse for hundreds of thousands of residents in California’s farming communities, according to a study released today by researchers at UC Davis.
Nearly 10 percent of the 2.6 million people living in the Tulare Lake Basin and Salinas Valley might be drinking nitrate-contaminated water, researchers found. If nothing is done to stem the problem, the report warns, those at risk for health and financial problems may number nearly 80 percent by 2050.
Death By Bacon? Study Finds Eating Meat Is Risky
Allison Aubrey
National Public Radio
March 12, 2012
Death By Meat? It can be hard to digest these numbers, but here’s how Hu and his colleagues came to these conclusions on red meat and mortality. They analyzed data from two huge studies — the Health Professionals Follow-up Study and the Nurses’ Health Study — and included more than 100,000 men and women. Volunteers completed questionnaires about how often they ate meat and other foods. Researchers tracked participants for several decades, documenting the onset of diseases and death.
Why Warmer Water Leads to Male Offspring – if You’re a Fish
Lisa Abend
Time
Dec. 29, 2011
To a list that includes extreme weather patterns and disappearing polar bears, you can add another dispiriting effect of climate change: too many males. Three years ago, Francesc Piferrer and other scientists working at Barcelona’s Institute of Marine Sciences proved that rising water temperatures caused some species of fish to produce a disproportionate ratio of males to females. Now, Piferrer and his team have gone on to discover something of a mechanism behind that imbalance.
Most fish species don’t have the X and Y chromosomes that differentiate the sexes in humans. In fact, at least 40 species of fish — as well as many reptiles — are more dependent on temperature than genes when it comes to separating the boys from the girls. In these TSD (temperature-dependent sex determination) species, the sex of offspring is fixed by temperatures experienced during embryonic development. In the 2008 study, Piferrer’s team showed that in a species like the Atlantic silverside, a water-temperature increase of 4°C could result in a population that was 98% male.(See “The End of the Line.”)
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2103333,00.html#ixzz1jBpdM22v