pollution

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 30, 2009
1:49 PM

CONTACT: Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA)
Kristin Schafer 415-981-1771
Heather Pilatic 415-694-8596

Global Chemical Treaty Tests New US Leadership

Shift on pesticide lindane may signal more positive US role

WASHINGTON - April 30 - Hundreds of government officials, industry groups, and public interest observers will gather next week in Geneva to assess global progress on phasing out a set of dangerous chemicals. Many are looking to the new U.S. Administration to demonstrate renewed leadership in international efforts to address these priority pollutants.

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PANNA (Pesticide Action Network North America) works to replace pesticide use with ecologically sound and socially just alternatives. As one of five autonomous PAN Regional Centers worldwide, we link local and international consumer, labor, health, environment and agriculture groups into an international citizens' action network. This network challenges the global proliferation of pesticides, defends basic rights to health and environmental quality, and works to ensure the transition to a just and viable society.

Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) Links:

Posted in Environment, pollution

Air Pollution Endangers Lives of Six in 10 Americans

WASHINGTON, DC - Six out of every 10 Americans - 186.1 million people - live in areas where air pollution endangers lives, according to the 10th annual American Lung Association State of the Air report released yesterday.

Some of the biggest sources of air pollution - dirty power plants, dirty diesel engines and ocean-going vessels - also worsen global warming, the Lung Association says in State of the Air 2009.

Posted in Environment, Health, pollution

Planet Earth: Too Big to Fail

The Obama administration has given itself an extraordinarily powerful tool that could help the president achieve all three of his top domestic goals at once--but only if he has the political moxie to deploy it to its full extent.

Posted in cap/trade, Environment, epa, green economy, pollution

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 27, 2009
3:45 PM

CONTACT: Earthjustice
Paul Cort or Brian Smith, Earthjustice 510-550-6700

EPA to Review Bush-Era Air Pollution Rules

Environmental groups who sued over New Source Review rules, cautiously optimistic

WASHINGTON - April 27 - EPA Chief Lisa Jackson announced today agency plans to reconsider Bush-era regulations on air pollution controls for facilities that emit fine particle pollution (PM 2.5).

Earthjustice, representing the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council sued the agency in July 2008, challenging the Bush new source review permitting program. The groups challenged several exemptions in the rule that would allow massive industrial facilities to be built without analyzing the impacts of soot pollution on surrounding communities.

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Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.

Earthjustice Links:

Posted in Environment, epa, pollution

E-waste: America's Electronics Feed the Global Digital Dump

The landscape of Guiyu, a remote town in China's Guangdong province, embodies a collision between past and future. Amid acidic plumes of smoke and vast mountains of trash, migrants scour for valuable scraps using their bare hands and simple tools. Yet Guiyu's apocalyptic wasteland is a byproduct of the Information Age: the workers have eked out a living from dissecting cell phones, computers, televisions, and other toxic debris of the electronics industry.

Posted in consumerism, pollution

Greens Hail Obama's OK to Regulate Greenhouse Emissions

$Greenpeace, which hailed Friday's announcement, warned against precisely that possibility, noting that the decade-long fight for regulating greenhouse gases had shown that \"industry will exploit every ambiguity, every gap and every loophole in legislation to avoid real climate action as much and as long as possible.\" (Getty image)$

WASHINGTON - U.S. green groups hailed Friday's formal finding by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that carbon dioxide and several other greenhouse gases "endanger" public health and welfare as a landmark – if long overdue – step toward slowing global warming.

Posted in climate change, epa, global warming, pollution

Suit Seeks Hundreds of Millions From BP

The state is aiming to collect "several hundred million dollars" from BP as compensation for pipeline leaks in 2006 that hobbled North Slope oil production and cut into state revenue, a state lawyer said.

The claim is the heart of a meticulous and highly technical lawsuit the state filed Tuesday against BP.

The federal government this week filed its own suit against the London-based company alleging violations of federal pollution laws.

Posted in Environment, oil, pollution

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 2, 2009
2:39 PM

CONTACT: Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA)
Heather Pilatic, 415-981-1771 ext. 324 | cell: 415-694-8596
Pam Miller, 907-222-7714 | cell: 907-242-9991

Arctic Tribal Leaders, Doctors, Parents and Advocates Call for New US Position on Pharmaceutical Uses of the Pesticide Lindane

WASHINGTON - April 2 - In the US, lindane is a pesticide approved for use in children's lice shampoo, but not on pets or plants. In much of the rest of the world, including Mexico, all uses of lindane have been banned for years. Parents, health professionals, and Arctic communities - whose food and breast milk are contaminated with a chemical they don't use - are urging US officials to close this loophole.

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Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) Links:

Posted in Environment, pollution

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 1, 2009
2:33 PM

CONTACT: Center for Biological Diversity
Shaye Wolf, (415) 632-5301

Lawsuit Filed Seeking Endangered Species Act Protection for the Ashy Storm Petrel

Rare California Seabird Threatened by Global Warming and Coastal Development

SAN FRANCISCO - April 1 - Today the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for illegally delaying protection of the ashy storm petrel under the Endangered Species Act. The Service failed to make a 12-month finding on whether the ashy storm petrel, a rare California seabird imperiled by development and global warming, should be listed under the Endangered Species Act as threatened or endangered. This decision was due by the agency on October 16, 2008.

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At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature - to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law, and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters, and climate that species need to survive.

Center for Biological Diversity Links:

Posted in conservation, ecology, Environment, pollution

Syncrude Triples Number of Dead Ducks From Oil Sands

Calgary - The number of ducks that died in a tailings pond at the Syncrude oil sands mine is more than three times as high as first estimated.

A total of 1,606 ducks died in April last year, many of them after they dove into a pond containing bitumen and drowned north of Fort McMurray, Alta., Syncrude president and chief executive officer Tom Katinas said in a news conference Tuesday morning. The company initially said only 500 died.

Posted in oil sands, pollution

CommonDreams.org