"PORT SULPHUR, LA. -- It sounds like a bottomless gusher of money: a $20 billion fund to help make Gulf Coast residents and businesses whole. But here in the bayou, where rich oyster beds have provided livelihoods to many and brought wealth to a few, people worry just how far BP's handouts will go."
"A panel of federal judges in Washington, D.C., has set aside 17 challenges that seek to force U.S. EPA to review its scientific finding that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare."
As nations meet in Morocco to consider whether to ban or allow whaling under the International Whaling Commission, Japan's bid to continue whaling is a hot issue. Despite Japan's defiant insistence on whale-hunting, few if any Japanese have any desire for whale meat.
"At least a half-dozen homebuilders, installers and environmental consultants knew as early as 2006 that foul smells were coming from drywall imported from China – but they didn’t share their early concerns with the public, even when homeowners began complaining about the drywall in 2008."
"A key Democratic lawmaker revealed an internal BP document on Sunday showing that the embattled oil giant's worst-case scenario projected that 100,000 barrels of oil could be released each day that the well remains uncapped." BP denied underestimating the spill.
The failure of a key device on the blowout preventer was one of many factors leading to the Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill. Documents and inquiries have shed light on the chain of events leading up to this failure. A New York Times investigation reveals the chasm between oil-industry assertions about blowout-preventer reliability and the actual facts -- as well as a gap between the Obama administration's efforts to reform drilling regulation and its actual performance.
The UK's Murdoch-owned Sunday Times in January 2010 published an article that seemed to discredit science suggesting the Amazon was vulnerable to drought as a result of trends linked to climate change. The article came at a time when climate change deniers were concertedly attacking peer-reviewed science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Now the Times has published a correction and apology for that January article -- discrediting yet another smear in the deniers' widely reported attack on climate science.
"Environmental groups filed two new major lawsuits Thursday, aimed at forcing the coal industry to stop violations of water-quality limits for toxic selenium."
"The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today suspended the use of a fast-track nationwide permit, Nationwide Permit 21, for mountaintop removal mining operations in the six states of the Appalachian region."
"Commercial fishermen can recover economic losses caused by polluters, the Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a decision that could establish precedent for future claims against BP PLC."
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