Exclusive: researchers tested water across Watts and found lead, a neurotoxic metal, at or above US government limits
A new report has found elevated lead levels in tap water across Watts, a south Los Angeles community that has faced decades of environmental racism, including in the drinking water of multiple public housing developments.
Researchers working with the Better Watts Initiative, a community environmental group, tested tap water at sites across the neighbourhood, and found lead, a neurotoxic metal, at or above US government limits.
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08/21/2024 - 09:00
08/21/2024 - 08:00
Volunteers come to share stories and labor. They leave with vegetables, war news and a shared sense of identity
On a recent Sunday, instructions in Arabic and English filled the air on a quiet street in New Hope, Minnesota. Every weekend, a group of Sudanese American professionals and students come to the half-acre space nestled near a distribution warehouse about 20 minutes north of Minneapolis. Their goal: to farm, and to do it together.
For the Sudanese Farming Group (SFG), every decision on this small plot of land is a collective one, every crop carefully tended. And each week brings new conversations, discoveries and people.
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08/21/2024 - 08:00
Twenty-four brain samples collected in early 2024 measured on average about 0.5% plastic by weight
A growing body of scientific evidence shows that microplastics are accumulating in critical human organs, including the brain, leading researchers to call for more urgent actions to rein in plastic pollution.
Studies have detected tiny shards and specks of plastics in human lungs, placentas, reproductive organs, livers, kidneys, knee and elbow joints, blood vessels and bone marrow.
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08/21/2024 - 06:00
Association has received millions from Koch Industries, fossil fuel lobby and fund linked to billionaire Leonard Leo
A powerful group that boasts 28 Republican attorney generals, including many who have sided with oil and gas firms to block states seeking compensation for weather disasters caused by climate change, has raked in millions of dollars from fossil fuel giants and a dark money fund tied to Federalist Society co-chair, Leonard Leo.
The Republican Attorneys General Association (Raga) has roped in about $5.8m from oil and gas giants and their allied lobbying groups since Joe Biden was elected president in 2020, campaign finance records show.
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08/21/2024 - 04:00
It is time to say this privatisation zealotry has been a disaster. March with us and let ministers know – enough is enough
You’ve been lied to, you’ve been misled, you’ve been extorted, you’ve been cheated, and you’ve been abused. For the last 35 years, you have been subject to nothing more than possibly the greatest organised ripoff perpetrated on the British people, and you have had little in return apart from greed, profiteering, financial engineering, political failure and regulatory incompetency. You’ve been had.
Thirty-five years after we were promised a utopian, market-driven vision of greatness, a future in which we would glory in the delights of an unlimited supply of clean water; in which our sewage would be quietly, efficiently collected, treated and disposed of, while our rivers, lakes and seas would teem with an abundant, diverse array of flora and fauna; and to top it all off we would have the cheapest water bills on Earth.
Feargal Sharkey is a campaigner and former lead singer of the Undertones
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08/21/2024 - 02:00
These new proteins could be our best hope of averting catastrophe. But governments are trying to have them banned
For many years, certain car manufacturers sought to obstruct the transition to electric vehicles. It’s not hard to see why: when you have invested heavily in an existing technology, you want to extract every last drop before disinvesting. But devious as in some cases these efforts were, they seem almost innocent in comparison with the concerted programme by a legacy industry and its tame politicians to suppress a far more important switch: the essential transition away from livestock farming.
Animal farming ranks alongside fossil fuel production as one of the two most destructive industries on Earth. It’s not just the vast greenhouse gas emissions and the water and air pollution it causes. Even more important is the amount of land it requires. Land use is a crucial environmental metric, because every hectare we occupy is a hectare that cannot support wild ecosystems.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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08/20/2024 - 23:00
Conservationists say the number of hunting licences granted is too high and condemn it as ‘pure trophy hunting’
Sweden has issued licences to kill 20% of its brown bear population in the country’s annual bear hunt, which begins today, despite concerns from conservationists.
Officials have granted licences for just under 500 brown bears to be culled by hunters. That equates to about 20% of the total population, according to official figures, and would bring the number of bears in Sweden down to approximately 2,000 – a drop of almost 40% since 2008.
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08/20/2024 - 22:07
Go-ahead given for first stage of $30bn SunCable project, which minister says will be ‘transformational’ for Northern Territory
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The Australian government has given the green light to the first stages of what it describes as the country’s “biggest renewable energy project ever” – an ambitious proposal to send energy from a solar farm in the Northern Territory outback to Singapore via subsea cables.
The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, said the approval under conservation law of SunCable’s $30bn-plus Australia-Asia Power Link was a “massive step towards making Australia a renewable energy superpower” and that the project would be “economically and socially transformational” for the NT.
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08/20/2024 - 19:19
Pro-brumby group had filed legal action against the NSW environment minister in a bid to stop the aerial culling
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The New South Wales government’s shooting of brumbies from helicopters in Kosciuszko national park can continue after a judge dismissed a challenge by a local non-profit group.
The pro-brumby Snowy Mountains Bush Users Group filed a legal action against the NSW environment minister, Penny Sharpe, in the state’s supreme court in June in a bid to stop the aerial culling, which was approved in October 2023.
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08/20/2024 - 18:01
England’s controversial eradication scheme may have caused higher rates of disease in surrounding areas, research shows
England’s controversial badger cull may have increased the risk of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) among herds in neighbouring areas, according to new research.
Researchers at the University of Oxford found that although badger culling reduced incidences of tuberculosis in the areas where it took place, in neighbouring areas the risk of the disease in cattle increased by almost a third.
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