Home/Articles in: Pollution
Articles in: Pollution
Climate & Change, Politics, Pollution, May 16th, 2012,
Ready for some doom and gloom, alarmist and generally pessimistic news that will either make you want to not care at all (the current favorite option) or join the Dark Mountain Project? Talking about the environment and pretending to be eco-friendly by wearing a ‘Kiss me, I’m Green’ button has apparently not saved the Earth from going to Hell in a proverbial hand basket. Ready for some shocking, but (honestly) to be expected, figures from the new ‘Living Planet’ report compiled by the WWF, the Zoological Society of London and the Global Footprint Network? Let’s get on with the ecocide…
Tags: Living Planet, report, WWF
Animals, Nature, Pollution, May 15th, 2012,
Fishermen in Germany are blaming swimmers for peeing in a lake near Hamburg, resulting in the deaths of some 500 fish. The fishermen contend that the large amount of phosphates contained in urine have caused large amounts of algae to grow, suffocating many fish. Though there may be a scientific basis to the fishermen’s anti-bathers claims, Hamburg’s Urban Development and Environment Authority (BSU) contends that it’s ice skaters who are at fault. From The Local: The ice-skaters make a noise that wakes the fish out of hibernation. Then they can’t breathe and freeze. That’s a very common phenomenon. –BSU spokeswoman…
Tags: deaths, fish, Hamburg, lake, pee
Business, Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, May 13th, 2012,
Gold rushes in developing countries mean riches for a few and crumbs, death and ecocide for the poor and the environment. But never mind all that, there’s money to be made. Gold in Peru is booming. According to Australia’s 9MSN, Gold is now Peru’s number one export, with countries like Switzerland, Canada and the US as major buyers. The article also briefly mentions the conflicts and environmental damage caused by Peru’s goldmines without going into any detail. Here are some details: Gold mining is destroying the Peruvian Amazon rainforest through deforestation, digging, and mercury, oil and hydrocarbon contamination, which is…
Tags: amazon, gold, gold rush, mercury, mining, Peru
Climate & Change, Politics, Pollution, May 8th, 2012,
The chairman of the UK’s environment agency, Lord Smith, has voiced public support for the controversial natural gas and petroleum technique known as hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’ with the argument that it will provide a secure and domestic source of energy. Fracking was linked to minor earthquakes when shale gas extraction was tried in the area around Blackpool, England. There are also concerns about groundwater contamination, methane leaks and the industrialization of the countryside, as has been experienced in large parts of the US, including government protected, publicly owned lands. From The Ecologist: Lord Smith’s backing follows pressure on the…
Tags: fracking, hydraulic fracturing, lord smith, nuclear
Pollution, May 7th, 2012,
On Sunday 12 people were killed and 129 injured in a fire at a chemical plant in eastern Thailand, reports Pakistan’s Daily Times. Just over two years ago I posted about Thailand’s Map Ta Phut industrial port in Rayong province and the environmental pollution the Thai petrochemical hub has wrought on the local population. This latest deadly incident at Map Ta Phut caused hundreds of residents to evacuate the area, though loud rains prevented many people from hearing the calls to leave. This prompted Thailand’s industrial minister to call for an upgrade of Map Ta Phut’s warning systems. From the…
Tags: chemical, explosion, fire, Map Ta Phut, plant, Thailand
Politics, Pollution, May 4th, 2012,
Up to one thousand locations in England and Wales may be contaminated with radioactive waste from military bases and factories. According to a new UK government report, a quarter of these places have been already confirmed to be contaminated. These figures surprised the British people, all the more, because only in December 2011, the Ministry of Defence cleared about 15 landfills of nuclear waste in the entire country. It leads the experts to one of two conclusions: either the authorities hid the real number of contaminated areas, or they did not realise the scale of the problem themselves. “In…
Tags: contamination, nuclear waste, radioactive
Natural disasters, Pollution, May 2nd, 2012,
95% of debris from the 2011 tsunami that devastated parts of Japan will end up in that swirling vortex of plastic and other rubbish – the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, but some will hit the shores of North America. Lighter debris has already reached places like Alaska, where a Japanese teenager’s football washed up on Middleton Island. The man who found the ball is married to Japanese woman, who was able to read the teenager’s name plus the name of his school. Amazingly, a moving crate containing a Harley Davidson motorcycle and a set of golf clubs was found on…
Tags: Alaska, America, British Columbia, debris, japan, tsunami
Politics, Pollution, Apr 25th, 2012,
Research commissioned by the human rights group Amnesty International found that an oil spill in the Niger Delta was at least 60 times worse than claims made by the oil giant Shell. Royal Dutch Shell is currently being sued over the spill in a London Court by a group of 11,000 Nigerians, including many fishermen of the Bodo region, who claim their livelihoods were destroyed. Though 60 times Shell’s figure, the Amnesty International estimate is still half of what Martyn Day, lawyer for the Bodo communities puts the damage at. From Reuters: The Amnesty accusation is based on footage of…
Tags: amnesty international, bodo, Niger Delta, Nigeria, oil spill, Shell
Pollution, Wildlife & Flora, Apr 10th, 2012,
About a month after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, radioactive particles were detected in giant kelp samples off the California coast. The level 7 nuclear incident resulted from the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the region around Fukushima, Japan in March of 2011. In a recent study California State University marine biologists tested giant kelp up and down the coastline of the state, from Laguna Beach to Santa Cruz, and found radioactive iodine, suggesting that radiation that leaked from the damaged Fukushima reactors had reached California. Levels 250 times higher than previous measurements were found in…
Tags: California, Fukushima, iodine, japan, kelp, radiation, radioactive
Health, Pollution, Apr 5th, 2012,
As people start to get hip as to what a scam bottled water is, the bottled water industry is getting worried. Bottled water wastes energy, pollutes and rips you off. What’s more, it is often less healthy than tap water. Microbiologist Dr Sonish Azam of Ccrest Laboratories is quoted in an article in the Telegraph from May of 2010: Heterotrophic bacteria counts in some of the bottles were found to be in revolting figures of one hundred times more than the permitted limit. Bottled water is not expected to be free from microorganisms but the [level] observed in this…
Tags: bottled water
Pollution, Weird & Wonderful, Apr 3rd, 2012,
Photographer and urban historian Steve Duncan explores and documents hidden aspects of urbanization and industrialization, from disused missile silos in the United States to the archaeology of Ancient Rome. In a series for National Geographic, Duncan investigates urban underground rivers. These rivers are not natural phenomena, like some subterranean waterways that run through cave systems, but rather the result of human engineering. For purposes of urban development, for hundreds of years mankind has changed the courses of rivers and streams, covering them up and forcing them underground. Most of the rivers examined in the series are in New York and…
Tags: london, National Geographic, New York, river, subterranean, underground, waterway
Pollution, Wildlife & Flora, Mar 29th, 2012,
The jury is in: common agricultural pesticides disrupt the navigation systems of honeybees and reduce the weight and number of queens in bumblebee hives. Two separate studies showed strong links between pesticides and the epidemic disappearance of honeybees in the US and UK, known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Experiments showed that honeybees died or failed to return to their hives in much greater numbers than expected. Bumblebees exposed to typical levels of pesticides saw their hives populations shrink by 10% versus hives not exposed. What’s worse is they almost lost their ability to produce new queens. Only queens live…
Tags: bumblebees, CCD, Colony Collapse Disorder, honeybees, pesticides, UK, US
Pollution, Mar 27th, 2012,
Of Japan’s 54 nuclear power reactors, only one is currently operating, following the shutdown of a Kashiwazaki-Kariwa reactor by Tokyo Electric Power Co. The remaining nuclear reactor still in operation is expected to be taken offline in early May. Japan’s about face turn from nuclear power of course follows the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in March 2011, which saw Level 7 Nuclear Events at three of its reactors. The earthquake and subsequent tsunami that caused the meltdowns at Fukushima are not the only earthquake-related nuclear power troubles that Japan has faced. The recently shut down plant…
Tags: earthquake, Fukushima, japan, nuclear power, reactor, tsunami
Pollution, Sustainable living, Mar 26th, 2012,
The world is facing a mounting crisis. In recent years we have experienced a combination of a global financial crisis, a food crisis, volatile oil prices, accelerating ecosystem degradation and an increasing number of climate-induced extreme weather events. These multiple and inter-related crises call into question the ability of a growing human population to live peacefully and sustainably on this planet, and demand the urgent attention governments and citizens around the world. –Earth Summit 2012 website The UN Conference on Sustainable Development, aka Earth Summit 2012, aka Rio+20, takes place in Rio de Janeiro Brazil from June 20-22nd. Rio+20 is…
Tags: Brazil, Earth Summit, Guanabara, Rio de Janeiro, Rio+20, sustainable development, UN
Politics, Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Mar 23rd, 2012,
A rainbow coalition of indigenous groups and social/political activists recently hit the streets of Quito, the capital of Ecuador, in protest of large-scale mining projects approved by the country’s president Rafael Correa. Correa praised the Chinese mining project, claiming they will bring 50,000 jobs and billions in revenue. Though Correa is popular in Ecuador, the project is facing opposition. Ecuador has already suffered a massive oil spill in the Amazon region, and some 50% of the country is already covered by mining and oil extraction projects. So Ecuadorans are understandably wary of more major mining operations. See the following video…
Tags: Correa, Ecuador, indigenous, mining, oil, park, potash, protest, video, Yorkshire
Conservation, Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Mar 22nd, 2012,
The purpose of World Water Day 2012 is to draw attention to the fact that some 783 million people live without access to clean drinking water. World Water Day – ‘celebrated’ today, March 22nd – also highlights water conservation, wastage and consumption. Water is an increasingly more valuable resource as the Earth’s population grows and water-intensive activities like beef farming stretch world water supplies. Greenpeace is marking World Water Day with a campaign to spread awareness of the pollution of waterways – especially in China – by the global textile industry. The textile industry is the third largest source…
Tags: China, fashion, Greenpeace, Pollution, textiles, water, World Water Day
Business, Climate & Change, Pollution, Videos & Documentaries, Mar 20th, 2012,
China may still be overwhelmingly dependent on fossil fuels for power (especially coal) but the country’s rapid economic boom and consequent insatiable hunger for energy is causing it to explore and exploit all avenues, including massive wind and solar projects. While the US is going natural gas crazy and despite plenty of solar possibilities, Australia is still in the thrall of cheap coal, China is embracing greener energy sources. Bear in mind China is still the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses and has a less-than-stellar record when it comes to toxic pollution. But the market is driving this still centrally…
Tags: australia, China, desert, energy, Gansu, Green, Solar, wind
Climate & Change, Health, Politics, Pollution, Mar 16th, 2012,
Just as the UN published figures that global access to clean water has improved, already surpassing their goals set for 2015, a new OECD report predicts that air pollution is set to become the leading environmental cause of premature death. So the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, whose raison d’être is economic growth, is warning that industrialization, which has worked hand in glove with economic growth and market-based economics, is killing more and more people by polluting the air. Previous UN figures showed that as the Global population increases, more urbanization occurs and the proportion of urban inhabitants without…
Tags: clean water, OECD, Pollution, report, sanitation, UN
Politics, Pollution, Mar 14th, 2012,
The government of Australia, led by Prime Minister Julia Gillard (Labor), recently passed a law called ‘Stronger Futures’, an extension of the previous governments ‘NT Intervention’ laws. Both laws have received criticism because they treat Aboriginal Australians differently then the rest of the country. Stronger Futures has drawn comparisons between Apartheid era South Africa and segregation policies in America’s Southern States before the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. According to the AAP, 27 ‘prominent’ Australians have written a letter to the leaders of the major parties in Australia’s Parliament in protest of the legislation, claiming it violates the Racial…
Tags: Aboriginal, australia, law, Muckati, NT Intervention, nuclear, racist, Stronger Futures
Animal Rights, Pollution, Mar 13th, 2012,
In preparation for the eventuality of oil spills resulting from drilling in the icy Arctic region, Shell Oil might be enlisting the help of sniffer dogs as an inexpensive contingency plan. Shell plans to start drilling off the northwest coast of Alaska as early as June. Since there are as of yet no methods for detecting oil spills that are covered by ice and snow, the use of dachshunds and border collies could be the best the minds of Shell and other companies have been able to come up with. Personally, I have no idea if this is an effective…
Tags: arctic, dachshund, drilling, Greenpeace, oil, Shell, sniffer dogs, spill
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