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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
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Species Collapse:(4)
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This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
contamination  ~ toxic leak  ~ oil issues  ~ anthropogenic change  ~ short-term thinking  ~ ecosystem interrelationships  ~ health impacts  ~ governmental idiocy  ~ climate impacts  ~ koyaanisqatsi  ~ toxic buildup  



ApocaDocuments (11) matching "contamination" from this week
[see full week] ~ [see all stories tagged "contamination"]
Sun, Jun 6, 2010
from BBC:
BP cap captures '10,000 barrels' a day in US Gulf
A containment cap on a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico is now funnelling off 10,000 barrels of oil a day, BP's chief executive Tony Hayward says. The amount has risen since Saturday, and implies more than half the estimated 12,000 to 19,000 barrels leaking each day is now being captured. The spill has been described as the biggest environmental disaster in US history. Mr Hayward told the BBC that BP would restore the Gulf to its original state. ...


Clearly, BP has secret time machine technology.

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Sat, Jun 5, 2010
from NOLA.com:
Formaldehyde causes cancer, EPA declares
The EPA has concluded that formaldehyde is carcinogenic when inhaled by humans, a finding that could lead to stringent new regulations of the widely used chemical. Used in the production of countless consumer products, formaldehyde attained a degree of national infamy after Hurricane Katrina when some of those living in the 120,000 trailers provided by FEMA as temporary housing for storm victims reported respiratory and other health problems after prolonged exposure to the chemical, which is contained in wood products in the trailers.... "There is sufficient evidence of a causal relationship between formaldehyde exposure and cancers of the upper respiratory tracts, with the strongest evidence for nasopharyngeal and sino-nasal cancers," the 1,043-page draft assessment concludes. "There is also sufficient evidence of a causal association between formaldehyde exposure and lymphohematopoietic cancers, with the strongest evidence of Hodgkin lymphoma and leukemia, particularly myleloid leukemia." ...


That's probably why zombies are so pissed.

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Fri, Jun 4, 2010
from Associated Press:
McDonald's pulls cadmium-tainted 'Shrek' glasses
Cadmium has been discovered in the painted design on "Shrek"-themed drinking glasses being sold nationwide at McDonald's, forcing the burger giant to recall 12 million of the cheap U.S.-made collectibles while dramatically expanding contamination concerns about the toxic metal beyond imported children's jewelry. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which announced the voluntary recall early Friday, warned consumers to immediately stop using the glasses; McDonald's said it would post instructions on its website next week regarding refunds.... The CPSC noted in its recall notice that "long-term exposure to cadmium can cause adverse health effects." Cadmium is a known carcinogen that research shows also can cause bone softening and severe kidney problems. ...


Gee, I hope my Iron Man 2 endocrine-disrupting deodorant is safe.

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Fri, Jun 4, 2010
from Greenwire:
Federal Funding Cuts Leave Oceanographers, Spill Responders in Dark
...For more than a decade, scientists have called for federal funding of a network of radar, buoys and other sensors that would provide the equivalent of a weather forecast system for the Gulf of Mexico. Yet despite what seemed like promising support in Washington, funding for these programs has dropped by half or more in recent years, leaving oceanographers to use satellite snapshots and imperfect models to guess where the oil will travel, dragged by unwatched currents. ...


But think of the money we temporarily saved!

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Fri, Jun 4, 2010
from Boulder Daily Camera:
Oil from Gulf spill likely to reach Atlantic, travel up coast
The oil that has been gushing out of a broken well in the Gulf of Mexico for more than a month will likely reach the Atlantic Ocean and then travel up the coast to North Carolina with the Gulf Stream, according to a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder....The model focused on the Loop Current, which connects the Gulf to the Atlantic. ...


It's only right everyone's in the Loop.

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Thu, Jun 3, 2010
from CNN:
Toxic chemicals finding their way into the womb
A growing number of studies are finding hundreds of toxic chemicals in mothers' and, subsequently, their babies' bodies when they are born. While there is no science yet that demonstrates conclusive cause and effect between this mix of toxic chemicals children are born with and particular health problems, a range of studies are finding associations between elevated levels of chemicals in a baby's body and their development. ...


That's why I call my youngest Li'l Guinea Pig.

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Thu, Jun 3, 2010
from USA Today:
There's no place like home for babies to pick up toxins
...Infants may take in two to five times as much household dust as adults, even though they weigh only one-eighth as much, says Alan Greene, a pediatrician at Stanford University's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. Because of that dust, babies are more likely to be exposed to pesticides and other potentially harmful chemicals inside the home than outside, he says. Children younger than 2 are also more vulnerable to toxins than adults because they're still developing, Greene says. On average, children that age who are exposed to a carcinogen are 10 times more likely than an adult to develop cancer, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. ...


That's why I call my youngest Li'l Dust Bunny.

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Wed, Jun 2, 2010
from Bloomberg News:
BP Oil Leak May Last Until Christmas in Worst Case Scenario
..."The worst-case scenario is Christmas time," Dan Pickering, the head of research at energy investor Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. in Houston, said... Ending the year with a still-gushing well would mean about 4 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf, based on the government's current estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels leaking a day. That would wipe out marine life deep at sea near the leak and elsewhere in the Gulf, and along hundreds of miles of coastline, said Harry Roberts, a professor of Coastal Studies at Louisiana State University. So much crude pouring into the ocean may alter the chemistry of the sea, with unforeseeable results, said Mak Saito, an Associate Scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. ...


Instead of coal, Santa will be pouring oil into our Christmas stockings.

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Tue, Jun 1, 2010
from CNN:
'Dirty dozen' produce carries more pesticide residue, group says
If you're eating non-organic celery today, you may be ingesting 67 pesticides with it, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group. The group, a nonprofit focused on public health, scoured nearly 100,000 produce pesticide reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to determine what fruits and vegetables we eat have the highest, and lowest, amounts of chemical residue. Most alarming are the fruits and vegetables dubbed the "Dirty Dozen," which contain 47 to 67 pesticides per serving. These foods are believed to be most susceptible because they have soft skin that tends to absorb more pesticides. ...


Ya gotta wonder if we're better off eating the pests.

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Tue, Jun 1, 2010
from Scientific American:
Green Chemistry: Scientists Devise New "Benign by Design" Drugs, Paints, Pesticides and More
...The harmful side effects of industrialization--smoggy air, Superfund sites, mercury-tainted fish, and on and on--have often seemed a necessary trade-off. But in the early 1990s a small group of scientists began to think differently. Why, they asked, do we rely on hazardous substances for so many manufacturing processes? After all, chemical reactions happen continuously in nature, thousands of them within our own bodies, without any nasty by-products. Maybe, these scientists concluded, the problem was that chemists are not trained to think about the impacts of their inventions. Perhaps chemistry was toxic simply because no one had tried to make it otherwise. They called this new philosophy "green chemistry." ...


Dude, I've been dabbling in green chemistry for quite some time.

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Mon, May 31, 2010
from Canadian Press, via CBC:
Sewage, jet fuel spilled in Arctic
Millions of litres of harmful contaminants -- including sewage and jet fuel -- have been spilled across great swaths of Canada's pristine Arctic in recent years, an analysis by The Canadian Press has found. A classified government database reveals the alarming extent to which Canada's North has been an accidental dumping ground for dangerous liquids. This never-before released information comes to light as the Harper government reviews its Arctic environmental-protection rules in the wake of a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.... The analysis found 260 spills in the North over five years. There were 137 spills in the Northwest Territories, 82 in Nunavut and 41 in the Yukon. Some spills took weeks or even months to clean up, while others were dealt with in a day or less. In one case, an unspecified amount of diesel seeped from a container in the Yukon for 2,013 days -- more than five years -- before someone finally plugged the leak. "It begs the question of whether we've got a chronic problem of oversight related to toxic spills in the North," said Craig Stewart, director of the World Wildlife Fund's Arctic program. "If there are so many repeat occurrences, what are the cumulative effects of these spills and why haven't we heard more about them up until now?" ...


Is that all? Good thing nothing lives up there!

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