Sensing election-year traction, coalition of 20 environmental groups also demand entrenchment of pause in gas-export licences
Joe Biden’s administration is coming under renewed pressure to escalate its curbs on the US’s booming trade in fossil fuels by halting new deepwater oil-export facilities, as well as entrenching its pause in gas-export licences.
A coalition of 20 environmental groups, sensing election-year traction with Biden as he seeks a second term as US president, has written to officials demanding a freeze on deepwater oil-export facilities, similar to the move announced by the Biden administration earlier this year when it paused new licenses for liquified natural gas (or LNG) exports.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
05/20/2024 - 07:00
05/20/2024 - 07:00
The FDA is developing front-of-package labels that corporations may have to start printing as early as 2027
Ultra-processed foods are ultra bad for you. Here’s what to know
Step into a grocery store in France and you’re liable to see a green, yellow or red score on the front of most packaged foods: a green “A” for the healthiest, a red “E” for the least nutritious. Zip across the globe to Chile, and that traffic light-like label becomes a stop sign, warning consumers when a food contains a high amount of sugar, salt, saturated fats or calories.
Today, more than a dozen countries require that companies print nutritional labels on the front of food packages – a move that’s come as the rate of diet-related diseases, like hypertension, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke and obesity, increases worldwide.
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05/20/2024 - 07:00
From maltodextrin to guar gum, these additives are found in 73% of the US food supply – and are linked to health impacts
The US food industry has long buried the truth about their products. Is that coming to an end?
If you’ve glanced at a nutrition label lately, you may have found yourself stumbling trying to pronounce ingredients like carboxymethyl cellulose or butylated hydroxyltoluene. In the United States, 73% of the food supply is what researchers would today call “ultra processed” (think chips, sodas, microwave dinners, packaged bread and fast food) – and products are often packed full of those difficult-to-say ingredients.
Ultra-processed foods (or UPFs) are commonly composed of two types of ingredients: industrial food substances and cosmetic additives. While industrial food substances are highly processed versions of ingredients that might otherwise occur in food (proteins, carbohydrates, sugars and oils, for example), cosmetic additives are included to improve the appearance or taste of foods.
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05/20/2024 - 07:00
A growing number of grocery-store foods, from fruit-flavored yogurts to packaged bread, are being tied to health concerns
What are those weird ingredients in our favorite packaged foods?
Shopping for yogurt, bread and granola bars might feel like a healthy decision. The dairy seems like a calcium-boosting choice for kids, the whole-grain bread looks better than the white bread, and granola bars appear so much better for you than chips or gummy bears – and in many ways, they are.
But a growing number of grocery-store foods – even ones that appear healthy – are what scientists today call “ultra processed”: fruit-flavored yogurts packed full of sugars, flavorings and thickeners like guar and carob bean gum; or packaged bread, with ingredients like soy lecithin and monoglycerides slipped in alongside the flour and water.
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05/20/2024 - 02:15
Jeff Bezos’s $10bn climate and biodiversity fund has garnered glittering prizes, but concerns have been voiced over the influence it can buy – and its interest in carbon offsets
Late last month, the coronation of Jeff Bezos and his partner Lauren Sánchez as environmental royalty was complete. At Conservation International’s glitzy annual gala in New York, with Harrison Ford, Jacinda Ardern and Shailene Woodley looking on, the couple were given the global visionary award for the financial contribution of the Bezos Earth Fund to the natural world.
“Jeff and Lauren are making history, not just with the sum of their investment in nature but also the speed of it,” said the Conservation International CEO, Dr M Sanjayan, whose organisation received a $20m grant from Bezos in 2021 for its work in the tropical Andes.
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05/20/2024 - 02:00
Five years after her last companion died and the aquarium’s owner pledged to free her, Bella still languishes in a tiny tank amid shops
In the heart of Seoul, amid the luxury shops at the foot of the world’s sixth-tallest skyscraper, a lone beluga whale named Bella swims aimlessly in a tiny, lifeless tank, where she has been trapped for a decade.
Her plight is urgent, with campaigners racing to rescue her from the bare tank in a glitzy shopping centre in South Korea’s capital before it is too late.
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05/20/2024 - 00:00
Scottish government accused of missing deadlines to take action on overfishing and effects of climate breakdown
Fragile and damaged marine life around Scotland’s coasts is not being properly protected because ministers in Edinburgh have broken their promises, environment campaigners have warned.
Prominent charities including the Marine Conservation Society and the National Trust for Scotland accuse the Scottish government of repeatedly missing its deadlines to protect vulnerable marine life from overfishing and the effects of climate breakdown.
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05/19/2024 - 23:49
Comms Declare asks ACCC to investigate show sponsor Australian Gas Networks for alleged greenwashing
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A climate communications group has asked the Australian consumer watchdog to investigate claims made about “renewable gas” by one of the sponsors of Network Ten’s MasterChef.
Comms Declare said it had filed a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission about the Australian Gas Networks’ partnership with the hit cooking show and its promotion of two developing products – “renewable” hydrogen and biomethane.
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05/19/2024 - 15:00
Exclusive: EPA chief executive says ‘foundational’ rule changes put climate impacts ‘front and centre' of planning process
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New coalmines, gas fields and other big sources of greenhouse gases in New South Wales will need to provide more rigorous plans to minimise pollution and reduce carbon emissions before they are approved, under new rules imposed on Monday.
Revised assessment requirements and guidelines from the Environment Protection Authority mark a “foundational” tightening of rules for firms planning new projects or modifying existing ones that emit at least 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year, said Tony Chappel, the NSW EPA chief executive.
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05/19/2024 - 11:00
Brandon Johnson promised to address the city’s longstanding inequities – advocates want to make the most of the moment
On the campaign trail, Brandon Johnson often talked about the asthma he suffered growing up just west of Chicago, connecting it to industrial pollution.
“For too long our communities have been seen as dumping grounds for waste and materials that no one seems to know what to do with,” the then mayoral candidate said at an event in the majority-Hispanic neighborhood of Pilsen.
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