Climate Health

Why closing NYC's only nuclear power plant would be a really bad idea

Rawwwrrr! It's a progressive cat-fight! On the one side is New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who wants to shut down the Indian Point nuclear power plant on the Hudson River, just 25 miles north of the Bronx.

On the other side is Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who thinks this would be a really crap idea, mostly because it would mean replacing fully a quarter of the power delivered to NYC with greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil fuel power plants. Also, it would probably lead to brownouts.

How many lives did the EPA just save with coal pollution regulation?

New EPA air pollution standard protects public health

Recognizing that pollution doesn't stop at the border, the rule will reduce power plant emissions of soot and smog that travel downwind across state lines.

Documents show Exxon downplayed time it took to seal Yellowstone spill

ExxonMobil told federal officials and Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer that they had sealed the pipeline leaking oil into the Yellowstone River within 30 minutes. But federal documents show that sealing the pipe took 56 minutes -- almost twice as long as the company originally said.

The company told the AP that the error came about because the Exxon representative who briefed officials was providing information without the benefit of notes. In other words, not really intended to be a factual statement.

Critical List: Republicans plan to defund the environment; no one likes the EPA

House Republicans want to defund all kinds of environmental activity -- the EPA, the Department of the Interior, the Forest Service. You know, just anything having to do with the outside.

And the USDA thinks that bioengineered bluegrass doesn't fall within its regulatory sphere, which means companies could grow the stuff without any regulation.

Exposing mice to air pollution makes them dumber and more depressed.

So it's probably good for everyone that the EPA is putting new regulations on coal-fired power plants that should reduced emissions of sulfur dioxide by 73 percent and nitrogen oxides by 54 percent from 2005 levels. Should Republicans succeed in cutting the agency’s budget yet again, this action could be little more than an empty gesture, though.

Ranchers are clearing the Amazon rainforest with Agent Orange

In Brazil, ranchers are opting to use Agent Orange -- one of the most toxic herbicides ever concocted, infamous for its use as a defoliant and de facto weapon during the Vietnam War -- to clear acres of rainforest. It's illegal to clear the forest, but by spraying swaths of trees with Agent Orange, deployed by helicopter, ranchers stand less chance of detection than if they cleared the land by bulldozing or cutting down trees.

ExxonMobil, historic flooding join forces to spread oil through Yellowstone River

The oil leaking from an ExxonMobil pipe into the Yellowstone River in Montana spread farther than the company said it anticipated. The reason, according to ExxonMobil’s spokespeople, is historic levels of flooding on the river. By Tuesday, Exxon had 280 people on the case, but still hadn’t managed to fight through floodwaters to reach the break in the pipeline. Exxon says the river is preventing its clean-up crews from going out on foot or in boats to look for oil on the river's banks.

Exxon did shut down the busted pipeline, but not before spilling more than 40,000 gallons of oil that they say it’s not yet safe to clean up, due to the floods. The company had been warned twice that it needed to check the pipeline for corrosion and update its emergency plans -- but now that there is actually a broken pipeline and an emergency, it’s obviously all the river’s fault.

How China accidentally geoengineered the climate

Between 2003 and 2007, China burned so much coal that it increased global consumption of the stuff 25 percent. That put so much sulfur into the air that it more or less literally (temporarily) blotted out the sun, masking some of the global warming that otherwise would have occurred during the first decade of the 21st century.

Your beach has a good chance of being contaminated with bacteria

When mulling over that eternal 4th of July question, Mountains v. Beach, consider that mountains are never closed because of bacteria that transmit rashes, pink eye, respiratory infections, meningitis, and hepatitis. Beaches, on the other hand, are closed for exactly that reason. And last year the number of beach closings and advisories, most of which were connected to bacteria, reached the second highest level in the past two decades, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

PG&E green program helps preserve forests, but so did taxpayers

PG&E's ClimateSmart program sells carbon credits to preserve a forest already protected by tax dollars