Pollution & Health
California’s Attorney General Steps Up Environmental Enforcement Efforts
A recent development worth noting is California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ increased profile when it comes to environmental enforcement. Harris, the first woman and minority Attorney General in California history, had a busy first year in office. Her razor-thin election win in November 2010 took over a month to be confirmed, delaying her transition from …
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CONTINUE READINGThe PM2.5 Risk: Even Greater Than We Thought
The more we find out about ultra-fine particles called PM2.5, the more dangerous to health they seem to be. E&E News reports: The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center study, published in tomorrow’s Archives of Internal Medicine, found a “strong association” between exposure to fine-particle pollution and strokes. The study was funded in part by U.S. …
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CONTINUE READINGNinth Circuit Dumps U.S. Forest Service’s Sierra Plan, Bureaucratic-Speak
The U.S. Court of Appeals recently issued a major decision invalidating the U.S. Forest Service’s 2004 Plan directing the USFS’s management of the 11 national forests (totaling 11.5 million acres) in the Sierra Nevada range. A divided Ninth Circuit panel found that the environmental impact statement accompanying the Bush Administration plan–which loosened logging and grazing …
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CONTINUE READINGSenator Santorum and the Environmental Chalice of Evil
Here is what Santorum said yesterday (from Politico): “You hear all the time, the left: ‘Oh, the conservatives are the anti-science party.’ No we’re not. We’re the truth party,” the former Pennsylvania senator said at a campaign event in Oklahoma City. “Because the left is always looking for a way to control you. They’re always …
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CONTINUE READINGAir Pollution Levels in China
The Economist commissioned a study of particulate pollution in China, using estimates based on satellite data. The results are predictably grim: World Health Organisation guidelines suggest that PM2.5 levels above ten micrograms per cubic metre are unsafe. The boffins have found (as the map shows) that almost every Chinese province has levels above that. Indeed, …
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CONTINUE READINGCurling Up In Front of the (Carcinogenic) Fireplace
Everyone loves to sit in front of a cozy fireplace — not surprising, given the role of fire in the evolution of our species. Hominids who hated campfires probably didn’t survive to leave many descendants. Sadly, our Stone Age instincts are leading us astray. Firewood should probably carry the same kind of warnings as cigarettes. …
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CONTINUE READINGDoes Public Transit Improve Air Quality?
Yihsu Chen and Alexander Whalley of UC Merced think they know. They have analyzed some useful data from the opening of Taipei’s new subway, in a recent article in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy: The transportation sector is a major source of air pollution worldwide, yet little is known about the effects of transportation infrastructure …
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CONTINUE READINGUrban Form and Public Health
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a very nice story about UCLA’s Dick Jackson. To quote this article; “In 2001, while still at the CDC, Dr. Jackson was a co-author of an article published by Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse that contended that poorly planned built environments had adverse effects on air quality, physical activity, and public …
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CONTINUE READINGEnvironmental Disasters and Regulatory Failures
There is a strong nexus between environmental disasters and regulatory failures. The connection is most obvious for the BP oil spill, where weak regulation contributed to a massive spill whose ecological consequences are not yet completely known. It’s also apparent in the reactor melt-down after the recent Japanese tsunami, which has resulted in radioactive releases. …
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CONTINUE READINGU.S. Supreme Court Justices Are on USEPA’s Case
You can’t blame the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of late for feeling it’s under siege. All of the current Republican presidential candidates are regularly excoriating EPA on the campaign trail, and Congress has conducted oversight hearings and threatened all sorts of legislative action designed to clip EPA’s regulatory wings. Now the U.S. Supreme Court appears …
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