Latest News
California has let oil waste sully groundwater 2,500 times. -
For decades state regulators have been allowing oil companies to inject wastewater into what are now federally protected aquifers—issuing more than a thousand new permits in the past four years. Meanwhile, groups have been pushing a fracking ban in California to protect water resources as the state enters a fourth straight year of drought. Associated Press
A New Orleans factory has been emitting mercury without a permit for decades. -
Plant owner Noranda says the pollutant, which can cause brain damage and accumulate in fish, has been wafting out of the facility for some time—since 1959! Now the company is asking for a permit to release 250 pounds of the potent neurotoxin a year while it figures out how to fix the problem. Not cool. New Orleans Advocate
Researchers find missing oil from the BP spill (at bottom of the Gulf). -
About half of the 4.2 million barrels that spewed into the sea following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon well explosion suddenly "disappeared." Well, two separate papers published recently say the mystery oil is down below. Though one of the studies was funded by money set aside by BP, the company calls the methodology “flawed.” Hmm... Washington Post
New report asks the U.K. health sector to divest from fossil fuels. -
A coalition of British medical organizations calls climate change “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century” and urges the industry to get rid of its fossil fuel investments, as it previously did with tobacco. Last June, members of the British Medical Association voted to divest, the first health organization to do so. The Guardian
This tax loophole allows corporations to wreak havoc and then write it off as a cost of doing business.
—Senator Patrick Leahy, who wants to outlaw tax write-offs for punitive damages. BP, for instance, could deduct at least 80 percent of its $42 billion in fines for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that killed 11 people and spewed 200 million gallons oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Artificial selection may be coral's only hope. -
Human-induced climate change has devastated coral populations, and now human intervention may be the only way to save them. As a last resort, researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology propose selectively breeding coral and their associated microbes to help the creatures adapt to warmer, more acidic seas. Matchmaker, matchmaker... Washington Post