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Population reduction no answer to environmental problems

Free Press: There is no quick fix for the ‘population time-bomb’ and even a world-wide one-child policy like China’s or catastrophic mortality events may still result in 5-10 billion people by 2100, according to a new study, reports PTI. Ecologists say that the “virtually locked-in” population growth means the world must focus on policies and technologies that reverse rising consumption of natural resources and enhance recycling, for more immediate sustainability gains. Fertility reduction efforts, however,...

Fracking foes may key drive Michigan ballot campaign underway as project looms in Livingston County

Free Press: Livingston County opposition to hydraulic fracturing could be instrumental in getting a proposal to ban fracking on the November 2014 ballot, the head of the ballot effort said. Many of the 965 county residents who signed the petition to put the question to voters did so after a high-volume hydraulic fracturing permit was issued in Conway Township, near Fowlerville, said LuAnne Kozma, campaign director for the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan. The committee failed in its first attempt...

Man dies of flesh-eating bacteria after wading into Florida river

Free Press: A flesh-eating bacteria in the same family as those that cause cholera has killed nine people in Florida this year, most recently a 59-year-old who was wading in the Halifax River to set crab traps. Henry Konietzky, 59, of Palm Coast, Fla., died Sept. 23 after setting the traps two days earlier in the river near Ormond Beach, Fla. The very next day, he noticed he had a sore on his leg that looked like a bug bite. That's one way the Vibrio vulnificus bacteria is transmitted. It lives in warm,...