| | | Find the Knowledge You Need with These Textbooks!! | myLot Discussions| Are water vending machines SAFE? | | California water-vending machines tested last summer failed to meet state standards for chemicals about a third of the time, according to a report by environmentalists. "Buying water from a machine in California is like playing a slot machine: You can't be sure what will come out," said a report released by the Environmental Working Group and the Environmental Law Foundation, which checked 274 machines. In San Francisco County, only one out of 15 machines met the state standard, the report said. In Santa Clara County, all 15 tested machines hit the mark.So, mylotters, be careful! | |
| | Change Your Shower Curtain. | | If you have a Plastic Vinyl shower curtain, you may be harming your health according to study results by the Canadian Environmental Law Association and Environmental Defence.Plastic Vinyl shower curtains apparently contain as many as 100 toxic chemicals that are known to cause health problems. The groups say chemicals from the curtains are released into the air that could contribute to a host of ailments ranging from minor complaints like headaches and nausea to major troubles like respiratory difficulties, damage to the central nervous system and liver and kidney malfunctions.http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_23739.aspxWe actually have a plastic vinyl shower curtain, and this is worrying news for me. If these are dangerous chemicals for adults, imagine what it must be like for kids who are more sensitive to things like this. I will be going out and getting either a cotton shower curtain or a curtain as soon as possible. I don't want to take any chances with my health.Do you have a plastic vinyl shower curtain? Would you consider changing it - especially if you know it's posing a danger to your health and your family's health? | |
| | 'Officials should be held responsible for pollution' | | A senior environmental official has called on the legislature to amend its 17-year-old environmental law in order to make government officials accountable for pollution. "The government's refusal or failure to fulfil its environmental responsibilities has seriously set back China's environmental protection efforts," said Pan Yue, deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA). Local government officials often avoid punishment for actions that result in serious pollution because the existing law on environmental protection primarily targets the behaviour of private citizens and organizations. The law's ability to restrict government behavior is limited. "With insufficient laws, the government's responsibility for environmental protection has become a mere scrap of paper," Pan said ahead of the "two sessions", the annual meetings of China's top legislature and top political advisory body. | |
| | Cities lead in climate change preparation | | Cities lead in climate change preparation A growing number of cities are racing ahead of the federal government in setting carbon emission targets and developing concrete strategies to deal with climate change.It is a direct consequence, municipal officials and analysts say, of the growing perception inside city halls that the Bush administration has largely ignored an issue that has reached a tipping point in American culture."Because of what many see as a policy failure on this issue in Washington, you see state and city governments stepping up and taking the lead on global warming, " said Daniel Esty, director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. "You've got people in Europe saying that America is doing nothing on global warming, but that's not true. You are seeing real action. But it's happening in a local way."What started in 2005 with the frustrations of one mayor - Seattle's Greg Nickels - over the Bush administration's resistance to the Kyoto Protocol has since grown to become a major nationwide movement. Nickel's "U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement" now includes 522 mayors representing 65-million Americans who have pledged to meet... | |
| | 'Gov't officials should be held responsible for | | A senior environmental official has called on the legislature to amend its 17-year-old environmental law in order to make government officials accountable for pollution."The government's refusal or failure to fulfil its environmental responsibilities has seriously set back China's environmental protection efforts," said Pan Yue, deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA).Local government officials often avoid punishment for actions that result in serious pollution because the existing law on environmental protection primarily targets the behaviour of private citizens and organizations. The law's ability to restrict government behavior is limited."With insufficient laws, the government's responsibility for environmental protection has become a mere scrap of paper," Pan said ahead of the "two sessions", the annual meetings of China's top legislature and top political advisory body. | |
| | Encouraging green projects | | Local governments should not allow projects that seriously pollute to be set up in their regions, even if they are highly lucrative, says an article in China Youth Daily. An excerpt follows: Major polluters in Tianjin have reached the end of the line, as the municipal government is determined to improve the local environment. But these scrapped projects are hot bidding targets for legions of business-luring officials from other provinces, especially those from economically less developed areas. Do these officials that are so keen to entice businesses not know how many environmental woes big polluters may cause? It seems they do not. They just see projects in terms of profits. They would rather use the "pollute first, pay later" development model as long as they can create "visible accomplishments," such as more job offers, higher revenues and increased GDP. Although local government officials' short-sightedness, selfishness and ignorance about scientific development could be blamed, some deep-rooted problems deserve more consideration. Projects that harm the environment should be subject to checks by environmental law enforcement bodies. Yet the... | |
| | save wild life!!! | | Orangutans depart on 'wildlife diplomacy'
Bangkok Post - 11/22/2006 Jakarta (dpa) - A group of 48 orangutans who were used as kick boxers at an amusement park in Thailand returned home to Indonesia on Wednesday, ending one of the world's largest trafficking cases of the great apes. The animals arrived aboard an Indonesian military transport plane at Halim Air Force Base in Jakarta Wednesday morning, said Teguh, a spokesman for the Ministry of Forestry. "They will be taken to Central Kalimantan province for rehabilitation before being released into the wild," he said. The province lies on the Indonesian side of Borneo Island, one of only three places in the world where orangutan are native, and which has rehabilitation centres for the animals. Two years ago, environmental officers raided Bangkok's Safari World theme park, where the apes were made to do mock kickboxing bouts for visitors. Park officials claimed the orangutans had been bred domestically but DNA test confirmed they were from Borneo. A total of 115 orangutans had been seized but dozens of the animals died or disappeared amid legal battles involving the park, wildlife activists and the Thai... | |
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