Bush Admin Responsible For 176,000 American Deaths

If you could directly save the lives of 176,000 people in the United States, and you refused to do it, or worse yet, created conditions that would cost even more lives, would you be responsible for those deaths?

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Environmentalist Sentenced to 21 Years as a “Terrorist"

Marie Mason, a longtime environmental activist and mother of two, was sentenced this afternoon to 21 years in prison, as a “terrorist,” for non-violent property crimes in the name of defending the environment. It’s a historic sentence, the longest yet for any of these Green Scare cases.

In the lead up to her sentencing, the FBI took their “eco-terrorist” scare-mongering to a new level. Mason’s friends and family were prepared to attend the sentencing hearing and support her at such a terrible moment in her life. So what did the FBI do? Agents had the audacity to warn the press that “terrorists” might be attending Mason’s sentencing. They said they “expect members of the eco-terrorist groups, the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front to gather and protest.” This, of course, is a bold-faced lie. Any FBI agents worth their salt knows that clandestine organizations like the ALF and ELF do not protest: they are illegal, underground groups. This was a calculated scare-mongering move meant to make normal, everyday people afraid of showing up to a public court proceeding, lest they be labeled as members of the “number one domestic terrorism threat.”

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Riches at the North Pole: Russia Unveils Aggressive Plan

Terrific! A new freakin place to fight over! I'm from the Cold War era and when the Russians act aggressive, the US acts aggressive! Remember when we used to think the world would end because the Russians or the US dropped nukes on each other? Both nations had enough nukes to blow up the world several times over?
Peace?

In a new national directive, Russia has asserted claims on large sections of the Arctic Ocean. The tone of the document is openly aggressive, prompting fears of increasing international tension over who has the right to exploit the mineral-rich territory

It seems that Russia, with almost one-third of its territory lying north of the Arctic Circle, is about to prove that the fears of Western nations bordering the Arctic are not unjustified. The nuclear power will soon begin flexing its muscles along the icy shores of its giant realm.
The interest of nations bordering the Arctic is growing as polar ice recedes. One week before leaving office, outgoing US President George W. Bush unveiled a strategic plan for the Arctic region. Canada, Denmark and Norway have launched their own initiatives. Even the European Union announced a new polar policy in November.
Meanwhile, the government-controlled newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta is preparing Russians for the notion that "the fight for the Arctic will be the initial spark for a new division of the world." Artur Chilingarov, a member of the Russia parliament and Moscow's chief ideologue when it comes to conquering the Arctic, puts it this way: "We are not prepared to give our Arctic to anyone."

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Waste Spills at Another T.V.A. Power Plant

By SHAILA DEWAN
Published: January 9, 2009
Waste from a pond at an Alabama coal-fired power plant run by the Tennessee Valley Authority escaped Friday into a Tennessee River tributary.
The accident occurred less than three weeks after a rupture in a similar pond at another T.V.A. plant spilled more than a billion gallons of coal ash over 300 acres in East Tennessee.
The overflow in Alabama, at the Widows Creek Fossil Plant in the northeastern corner of the state, was much smaller, officials said.
Up to 10,000 gallons of slurry spilled, said Scott Hughes, a spokesman for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, who cautioned that the figure was preliminary.
Mr. Hughes said investigators had not documented any negative impact on aquatic life and did not expect any contamination of drinking water.
John Moulton, a spokesman for the T.V.A., said the problem began when solid material slid into the slurry in the pond, driving water through a disused pipe. The pipe led to an adjacent settling pond, which then overflowed into Widows Creek, a Tennessee River tributary, Mr. Moulton said.
John Wathen, an environmental advocate, flew over the site Friday and said that Widows Creek was inundated with an ashlike substance and that a “mix line” was visible where it met the clearer water of the river.
Referring to the earlier spill, at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee, Mr. Wathen added: “This is not as bad as Kingston, but it’s worse than T.V.A. is acknowledging. This is two failures by T.V.A. in one month’s time, both in the Tennessee River. Both are potential problems for downstream water intake.”
Friday’s spill involved coal combustion waste different from that in the earlier one.
In Tennessee, what spilled was largely fly ash, a byproduct known to contain toxic metals like arsenic, lead and mercury. That spill occurred on Dec. 22 when an earthen retaining wall gave way.
In Alabama, the spill was from a gypsum pond, Mr. Moulton said. Some methods of cleaning toxic substances from coal plant emissions produce a slurry that is stored in a pond until the formation of crystals of gypsum, a material used to make drywall.
Though gypsum slurry does contain contaminants, it is less toxic than fly ash, studies by the Environmental Protection Agency show. Still, tests of water that has leached from gypsum can yield levels of boron, cadmium, molybdenum and selenium that exceed safety standards. These contaminants can cause cancer and reproductive and neurological problems in humans, and selenium is particularly harmful to wildlife.

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Cops Arrest Activists For Documenting Ash Spill Damage In TN

Two environmental activists were detained by the Tennessee Valley Authority police for photographing the site of last weeks ash spill. While it does not appear that they will be charged with crimes, they were unable to document the ash spill’s effects on the area and its water supply.

The men, who are from the Knoxville based United Mountain Defense, say that TVA has yet to release the water toxicity results. They say they have the right to take their own measurements and photographs unless TVA shows their results. “This is an issue of national importance,” said David Cooper. “People need to know if the water is safe or not.”

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The Biggest Scientific Breakthroughs of 2008

Progress This Year Wasn't Just in Hardware but in Understanding the Urgency of Key Issues. The "breakthrough" in this case is not just hardware; it's a growing understanding of the urgency in solving these critical problems.

The year 2008 closes with two enormous scientific and technological challenges unresolved: How to create renewable and benign sources of energy and how to lessen the damage we're doing to the global climate system.
Those twin issues are the "greatest challenge facing modern science," according to Nobel laureate Steven Chu, the gifted physicist who has been nominated to head the Department of Energy. He will be at the center of the effort to deal with these vexing problems, and his nomination signals a new day in that effort.
Clearly, those two issues dominated the world of science during 2008, a year that also saw much progress in fields as diverse as genetic engineering, the imaging of new planets outside our solar system and the maturing of social media that has altered everything from how we meet people to financing a costly and victorious campaign for the presidency of the United States. It's difficult to pick a single scientific achievement that stands out above all others because science, as a whole, doesn't work that way.
Here's ABC News list of the top 10.
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COAL ENERGY FACTS

-----Brought to you by thisisreality.org-----Why we need to stop burning coal to help solve the global warming crisis.

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In reality, there is no such thing as "clean" coal in America today

There are no homes in America powered by "clean" coal today. There are no "clean" coal power plants selling electricity in America today. In fact, America does not have a single demonstration "clean" coal plant that captures and safely stores its carbon pollution. The technologies that capture or safely store CO₂ have not yet been integrated with coal power at commercial scale. This means that the roughly 600 coal plants producing electricity in the US today are not preventing their global warming pollution from entering the atmosphere. Although the technologies are being developed and tested, in reality, there is no such thing as "clean" coal power in America today.

Repower, Refuel, and Rebuild America

The Bush Recession has already cost 1 million jobs. We urgently need to get our economy moving by building a clean energy future.

Please join me in asking President-elect Obama to Repower, Refuel, and Rebuild America.

President-elect Obama must take the lead with a bold clean energy agenda.

Urge Obama to make
clean energy a priority in
his first 100 days.

After eight years of energy policy written by Big Oil, we finally have the opportunity to make a clean break—and shift to a new, sustainable energy economy.

President-elect Obama has no time to waste. He must take the lead with a bold clean energy agenda in his first 100 days.

Urge President-elect Obama to commit to Repower, Refuel, and Rebuild America.

The League of Conservation Voters is partnering with nearly a dozen environmental groups to send a strong message to the President-elect that now is the time to grow our economy and build a sustainable energy future.

We are calling on President-elect Obama to support four goals the moment he steps foot in the Oval Office:

• Moving America to 100% clean electricity;
• Cutting our dependence on oil in half;
• Creating 5 million new clean energy jobs; and
• Cutting global warming pollution by at least 80%.

America has a fresh start. This is our chance to turn things around. We can't wait any longer to solve our energy crisis, so add your voice today.

Click here to sign the petition to Repower, Refuel, and Rebuild America.

Sincerely,

Gene Karpinski
President, League of Conservation Voters

Stronger than cement - and lighter too

More banned technology

How would like like a building material that is stronger than cement and SIX TIMES lighter?
Better yet, one of its main ingredients in the waste product of a plant that literally grows like a weed.
Well, Big Brother says you can't have it because the plant - hemp - is "dangerous to society."
Here's the reality about cement:
1. The manufacture of traditional cement is incredibly energy intensive, so much so that many cement companies seek and receive legal variances to not only burn coal, but also medical waste and used automobile tires as fuel for their kilns.
2. After oil refineries and chemical plants, cement factories are the most polluting factories in the world, spewing tons of microparticles containing toxins like arsenic and mercury into the air.

Stronger than cement- and lighter too

Technorati Tags: BrasscheckTV,video,hemp,building,enviroment

Earth to Washington

By december 2007, Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) had been toiling on environmental and clean-energy legislation in Congress for three decades—and for the past few years, the task had increasingly come to feel like pushing a boulder up Capitol Hill. But that was then. Now Markey, a garrulous lawmaker with a thick Boston accent, was elated.

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How fast can Obama fix US environment policy?

For eight years the US has been seen as a global outlier on climate issues. Now, with just 12 months to go until the world decides on a new Kyoto protocol, it is catch-up time for president-elect Barack Obama. What can he reasonably achieve in that time?

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Are We Doing Enough to Protect the Earth's Ozone Layer?

The ozone layer protects us from ultraviolet-B radiation from the Sun, which causes skin cancers and other harmful conditions. According to the scientist that first discovered the big hole over Antarctica, we are simply not doing enough to safeguard the ozone layer.

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Drilling caused mud volcano that displaced 36k villagers

Two residents of Sidoarjo in eastern Java wade through chest-deep mud in search of possessions lost to the mud volcano. Photograph: Dimas Ardian/Getty Images

Tens of thousands of Indonesian villagers battling for compensation after a mud volcano swamped their homes have received a boost after a panel of international scientists concluded that exploratory drilling for gas had caused the eruption.

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F.D.A. Criticized for Assurances on Chemical in Plastic

A scientific panel has issued a blistering report against the Food and Drug Administration, saying the agency ignored important evidence in reassuring consumers about the safety of the controversial chemical bisphenol-A.

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Is there E. coli in your drinking water?

The Supreme Court and the Bush Administration have sided with polluters to strip vital protections from the Clean Water Act. That means that dangerous pollutants like E. coli, bacteria, mercury, PCBs, and dioxin could be contaminating the drinking water of more than 110 million Americans.

Urge Congress to restore the original protections by supporting the Clean Water Restoration Act.

Bob Fertik

Don't let polluters contaminate your drinking water.

Urge Congress to support the Clean Water
Restoration Act today!

It's hard to believe, but polluters are actually allowed to contaminate your drinking water.

Why? Because the Supreme Court and the Bush Administration have sided with polluters to strip vital protections from the Clean Water Act. That means that dangerous pollutants like E. coli, bacteria, mercury, PCBs, and dioxin could be contaminating the drinking water of more than 110 million Americans .

But Congress can act today to restore the Clean Water Act's original protections by supporting the Clean Water Restoraction Act.

Click here to urge your Members of Congress to support this critical legislation.

If strengthened, the Clean Water Restoration Act would bring back safeguards for drinking water and ensure waterways and wetlands are kept pollutant-free. Even a handful more co-sponsors would build the momentum we need to get to winning votes of 218 in the House and 60 in the Senate.

But legislators are under pressure from developers and corporate polluters to stay quiet on clean water. Why? Because even though these dangerous pollutants have been linked to cancer, birth defects, and other health problems, keeping our drinking water clean would cut into the big polluters' profit margin.

It's this simple: Congress has a choice between standing with big polluters and their big profits or standing up for the health and well-being of more than one hundred million Americans.

Don't wait until it's too late—ask your Members of Congress to support the Clean Water Restoration Act.

Tens of thousands of concerned Americans have already contacted their Members of Congress to demand a strengthened law to protect our drinking water. Please add your voice today as Congress considers the Clean Water Restoration Act.

Sincerely,

Gene Karpinski
President, League of Conservation Voters

There's something in the water... Pharmaceuticals?

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.

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***This doesn't surprise me in the least!

U.N.'s Ban urges 2009 deadline for climate deal

By Emma Graham-Harrison NUSA DUA, Indonesia

(Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the world on Wednesday to agree to work out a new climate treaty by 2009 but said it might be ''too ambitious'' to set goals for greenhouse gas cuts in...

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