Breaking Waves: Ocean News

New rule would prohibit states from banning dangerous chemicals, and could invalidate hundreds of protections A new rule proposed by the Trump administration would dramatically weaken safety reviews for some of the nation’s most toxic chemicals that are already on the market, public health advocates and an EPA employee warn. Many of the chemicals that would receive less scrutiny are among the nation’s most dangerous substances, including PFAS, formaldehyde, asbestos and dioxins. Each poses serious health risks in consumer goods, or for workers handling the substances, advocates say. Continue reading...

Climate crisis contributing to spread of diseases as hunting industry takes a hit from growing number of dead deer When landowner and hunter James Barkhurst went scouting his property about a month ago to assess the local deer population ahead of the fall hunting season, he was left in shock. “I’ve seen about 14 dead in less than a mile stretch. There’s a lot of does, big bucks and even fawns. You smell the dead everywhere,” he says. “And I haven’t really went deep into the woods.” Continue reading...

Air breathed by people in the city categorised as ‘severe’ in quality after fireworks contribute to thick smog Delhi awoke to a thick haze on Tuesday, a day after millions of people celebrated the Hindu festival of Diwali with fireworks, marking the beginning of the pollution season that has become an annual blight on India’s capital. Those in the most polluted city in the world once again found themselves breathing dangerously toxic air that fell into the “severe” category on Tuesday morning. Continue reading...

While Nigel Farage promotes retro plans to reopen coalmines, will he really tell thousands of clean energy workers to leave their well-paid, local jobs? This government is bad at proclaiming what it’s for. But to find out, follow the money. Its boldest investment is in green energy, designed to create prodigious returns in economic growth, employment, training, climate action and more. So far it has been hard to sell. Wafty talk of greenness passes most people by, and “whose growth is it, anyway?” is a realistic question in a country of stagnant pay and public decay. But, this week, Ed Miliband put flesh on the green words, making jobs and projects concrete. A very big number of green jobs – 400,000 by 2030 – are set to be created in 31 “priority occupations”, from welders to production managers, plumbers and joiners, everywhere from Centrica’s £35m state-of-the-art training academy in Lutterworth to Teesside’s net-zero decarbonisation cluster. This is what a Labour industrial strategy should look like. Nigel Farage’s retro campaign for this week’s Caerphilly byelection promises to reopen Welsh coalmines. But well-paid, clean, green-energy jobs within their home districts are what Miliband’s Doncaster North constituents want, the minister tells me, not sending young people down reopened mines. Government figures show wind, nuclear and electricity jobs pay more than most – the average advertised salary in the wind sector is £51,000 a year, against an average £37,000. Unions, once sceptical and fearful of losing jobs in unionised industries, now sign up with guarantees that any new plant getting grants must “support greater trade union recognition” and a fair work charter. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...