Environment Memo

One reason why those eBay things from Hong Kong are so cheap (besides the low postage).

There’s a big announcement today that EPA will spend $1.9 million studying hydrofracking. The EPA Science Advisory Board is to hold a public meeting April 7 – 8 to discuss how they will conduct the study. (Does this mean they will accept input?) My hope is that the SAB will not limit itself to itself. [...]

One hypothesis that I’ve not seen addressed is that there might be something about the manufacturing of vaccines slipping between the cracks, which might shed light on side-effects of vaccines, including being a contributor to some cases of autism. For example, there seems to be a tacit assumption that all Quality Assurance/Quality Control data in [...]

So says recent research, published in Environmental Science & Technology (abstract here) in an article entitled “Enhancement of Local Air Pollution by Urban CO2 Domes.” I’ve reviewed the article, and this research demonstrates through modeling that carbon dioxide may contribute to ozone and particulate matter levels, with associated effects on health. So, there’s added impetus [...]

A good review of the issues, and pointing out how the Obama administration is still going for it, big time, at Yale360 here.

FoxNews is running a story on the banning (“in their current form”) by the British Advertising Standards Authority of two climate change  ads from British TV. But ads they did NOT ban are worthy of note. (Is Fox showing these?) The complaints and the analysis by this authority (here) are interesting as they delve into [...]

Geoengineering is a  special category of technology requiring careful, independent investigation before  sinking big bucks on them, or, heaven forbid, risking the planet with one of them. As such, geoengineering approaches often receive scrutiny from some very savvy scientists, who not only want to do good science, but have self-preservation as a driver, as well. [...]

To me, the “faithful” are those who accept, without reservation, that there is no link between vaccines and autism in children. They examine the studies demonstrating there is no link, and assume all the bases have been covered. But is that really the case? Has there been a thorough vetting of all assumptions behind these [...]

Who would have thought there’s a lot of apple juice out there with levels of arsenic exceeding the FDA’s level of concern, and that most of our apple juice concentrate comes from China? As reported at Tampabay.com, More than 60 percent of the apple juice from concentrate sold in U.S. stores comes from Chinese orchards, [...]

Adding iron to the ocean does result in phytoplankton growth, potentially taking up carbon in the process. But the future of the method was never very bright, as we can glean from the early history of the concept,which I’ll discuss in an upcoming post. New research buttresses concerns that have been around from the idea’s [...]