CIA intelligence analysts have focused more intensely in the past year on a threat to national security they find highly worrisome: geopolitical chaos caused by climate change. Speaking on background, they say the U.S. is frighteningly unprepared. The CIA analysts must stay anonymous, because the public is not supposed to know.
"Scientists are continuing to sound the alarm about some common chemicals, including the herbicide atrazine, and link them to changes in reproductive health and development. Endocrine disrupting toxic chemicals have been found to feminize male frogs and cause homosexual behavior." Now the question is how these substances may be affecting human development and behavior.
The Tuesday recommendations of the presidential oil spill commission may include one that could help the offshore oil industry dodge tighter government safety regulation -- creation of a self-policing program like the one the chemical industry launched after Bhopal.
Lobstermen and environmentalists are concerned about pesticides used by aquaculture operators in Passamaquoddy Bay to kill sea lice that infest salmon holding pens.
A large fraction of the honey eaten by North American consumers is produced in China, and contaminated with antibiotics and adulterants. An elaborate enterprise works to hide its Chinese origins.
"A shutdown of the Trans Alaska Pipeline, which ships 12 percent of U.S. crude output, entered a third day on Monday, boosting prices and raising pressure on operators including BP to restore shipments."
"Members are linked by the spiritual connections between their local desert landscapes and the parched sacred grounds that have nurtured some of the world's great religions."
The media frenzy started by the mass death of some red-winged blackbirds in Arkansas was based on ignorance. Such mass kills of wildlife occur all the time in nature and have natural causes, biologists say.
"A study predicts there will be havoc akin to a big-budget Hollywood disaster movie in the next 1,000 years even if people stop emitting all carbon dioxide into the atmosphere now."
