"GENEVA -- Global warming accelerated since the 1970s and broke more countries' temperature records than ever before in the first decade of the new millennium, U.N. climate experts said Wednesday."
If you are looking for yet another category of environmental information that the U.S. public is not allowed to know about, try international trade agreements. A recent court decision — one that got little attention from the news media — upheld the federal government's authority to keep secret some information about the health and environmental impacts of trade treaties.
On June 25, 2013 — the day President Obama gave his climate speech — officials from the Office of Management and Budget, the Council on Environmental Quality, and the Environmental Protection Agency held a closed-door meeting with lobbyists from the oil and chemical industries who don't want the public to know how they calculate their greenhouse gas emissions.
After a decade of neglect, the NPMS is partly back online and marginally functional. Parts of it don't even work. But if you want to get a general clue about the location of major natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines in your community, the NPMS is one place to start. And, there are other ways to get the info you need.
Exxon claims trade secrecy in its bid to hide inspection results for the pipeline that leaked 5,000 barrels of Canadian oil sands crude in Arkansas last spring, spurring debate over transparency and spill readiness. EnergyWire's Elana Schor has the story, raising questions that have still to be answered.
"Babies whose mothers consume nitrates in drinking water have a higher risk of spina bifida, cleft palate and other birth defects, according to a large study of children in Texas and Iowa. Used as fertilizers on crops, nitrates are one of the most widespread chemical contaminants in aquifers around the world. The study is the first to compare birth defects in kids to their mothers’ consumption of nitrates-tainted drinking water during pregnancy."
"In Vernon, a judge allows Exide to resume operations that had been suspended for alleged pollution violations. In the Central Valley, a state agency OKs expansion of a hazardous waste dump."
"A meeting of 24 nations and the European Union in mid-July will decide the fate of two proposed ocean reserves in Antarctica."
"Our planet's climate is rapidly changing and threatening the future of our civilization, yet mainstream media outlets and many conservatives continue to ignore the problem. Why?"
"Former FBI Director Louis Freeh will head an ethics probe of the organization that’s processing and paying oil-spill damage claims for BP Plc."
