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Archive for August 11th, 2011
Interview: Emerging Challenges In U.S. Environmental Health
Posted by Yale Environment 360: Elizabeth Grossman on August 11th, 2011
Yale Environment 360: Lynn Goldman, a pediatrician and epidemiologist, has spent her professional life trying to understand and alleviate threats from environmental sources, including the impact of chemical exposures on children. Her interest in the field dates back to her childhood in Galveston, Texas, where she grew up along the Gulf of Mexico surrounded by oil refineries and chemical plants that lit up the night sky with eerie blue, green, and orange hues.
George Washington UniversityLynn Goldman In an interview...
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Philippines’ tribes try to save their forest
Posted by Al Jazeera: None Given on August 11th, 2011
Al Jazeera: In the Philippines, when the rest of the population goes to sleep, a reclusive community of indigenous people prepares for another restless night of fear and uncertainty.
Far away in the dense, dark forests of Occidental Mindoro, where Mangyan people are scattered in small remote settlements, tribal leaders now routinely contemplate their future in feverish debates that usually last until daybreak.
"We are petrified that big mining companies will take over our ancestral land. If the government...
The mission to build a toilet that utilises human poo
Posted by Ecologist: Paul Miles on August 11th, 2011
Ecologist: Imagine a toilet that takes human waste and converts it into minerals for fertiliser and clean water, while harvesting energy in the process.
The toilet doesn't use water, doesn't need expensive infrastructure of a sewerage system, doesn't need to be connected to mains electricity and, unlike composting toilets, doesn't need lots of space and time. If a new multi-million dollar project, the 'Reinventing the toilet challenge', is a success, such a toilet may soon become a reality.
The first...
Stop crackdown on small tin miners: Indonesia industry
Posted by Reuters: Michael Taylor on August 11th, 2011
Reuters: Indonesian police carrying out an environmental crackdown in the main tin producing region of Bangka island, should stop targeting small-scale miners as it is hindering domestic smelters' supplies, the Indonesian Tin Industry Association said.
Small-scale traditional tin miners in Indonesia, the world's top tin exporter, have slowed mining activity because they fear being raided by the police, who have been intensifying a crackdown on illegal miners for the past few months.
Small smelters in...
U.S. panel seeks more disclosure on natgas drilling
Posted by Reuters: The Lone Start State Is Breaking Heat and Drought Records This Summer, With No E on August 11th, 2011
Reuters: Natural gas drillers should reveal all chemicals they use in the drilling technique called "fracking" used to tap deep shale reserves, a government panel said on Thursday, even though the risk of water pollution from the technique is "remote."
The U.S. Energy Department's natural gas advisory subcommittee urged regulators to require drillers to release more information about the impact of hydraulic fracturing, which is essential to tapping the nation's plentiful shale gas reserves.
The panel...
Energy Panel Wants Answers On Gas Fracking
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 11th, 2011
National Public Radio: A Department of Energy panel hopes new recommendations "” if implemented "” will restore the public's trust in hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" for natural gas.
In the last few years, fracking has brought new life to old gas fields around the country. Most of the increasing production comes from dense layers of shale deep underground. By pumping huge deep underground amounts of water, along with smaller amounts of chemicals and sand, drillers can force gas out of shale.
Due in part to fracking,...