Water shut-offs have now begun in California, where government-ordered restrictions are starting to leave large communities high and dry. As CBS News is now reporting, the Mountain House community of 15,000 residents will run out of water in just a matter of days. “The community’s sole source of water, the Byron-Bethany Irrigation District, was one of 114 senior water rights holders cut off …
Researchers Highly Correlate Rheumatoid Arthritis with Solar Storms BY RALPH TURCHIANO
What began as a chat between husband and wife has evolved into an intriguing scientific discovery. The results, published in May in BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) Open, show a “highly significant” correlation between periodic solar storms and incidences of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and giant cell arteritis (GCA), two potentially debilitating autoimmune diseases. The findings by a rare collaboration of physicists and medical researchers …
A third of the world’s biggest groundwater basins are in distress
Two new studies led by UC Irvine using data from NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites show that civilization is rapidly draining some of its largest groundwater basins, yet there is little to no accurate data about how much water remains in them. The result is that significant segments of Earth’s population are consuming groundwater quickly without knowing when …
Walmart Accused Of Using Its Charitable Foundation To Build More Walmarts By Chris Morran
There are more than 4,500 Walmart stores in the U.S., but the nation’s largest retailer continues to expand. The company, once associated with rural communities, has recently made pushes into urban markets. And a new complaint to the IRS accuses Walmart of wrongfully using its tax-exempt Walmart Foundation charity to get a foothold in those cities. In a lengthy and …
As Stress Drives Off Drone Operators, Air Force Must Cut Flights By CHRISTOPHER DREW and DAVE PHILIPPS
After a decade of waging long-distance war through their video screens, America’s drone operators are burning out, and the Air Force is being forced to cut back on the flights even as military and intelligence officials are demanding more of them over intensifying combat zones in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. The Air Force plans to trim the flights by the armed surveillance drones to 60 a day by …
Channelling the Joy By George Monbiot
In defending the natural world, we should be honest about our motivations – it’s love that drives us, not money. Who wants to see the living world destroyed? Who wants an end to birdsong, bees and coral reefs, the falcon’s stoop, the salmon’s leap? Who wants to see the soil stripped from the land, the sea rimed with rubbish? No …
War Games Set to Begin in the Pristine Gulf of Alaska Amid Protests By Sonia Luokkala
Today the US Navy plans to unleash [3] 6,000 sailors, soldiers, airmen, Marines and Coast Guard members along with three Navy Destroyers, 200 aircrafts, untold weaponry, and a submarine to converge in war games in the Gulf of Alaska. The training exercises are scheduled to continue through June 26. The Navy’s choice of the Gulf of Alaska – one of the most pristine …
America’s Electoral Farce By Chris Hedges
I intend to devote no more time to the upcoming presidential elections than walking to my local polling station on Election Day, voting for a third-party candidate, most likely the Green Party candidate, and going home. Any further energy invested in these elections, including championing Bernie Sanders’ill-advised decision to validate the Democratic Party by becoming one of its presidential candidates, is …
The Pentagon Doesn’t Know What It Spent 8.5 Trillion Dollars On
When government is completely dysfunctional and seems not to serve the people’s interests, we have to wonder where our tax dollars are going. Thanks to a Reuters investigation by Scot Paltrow, we have an answer—or, rather, a non-answer. Apparently, the Pentagon has made use of $8.5 trillion of our tax money handed over by Congress since 1996—but don’t ask what was done with …
GREEN ACTIVISM REALLY DOES PAY OFF
In states with strong environmental movements, greenhouse gas emissions are inching lower. Social scientist Thomas Dietz and Kenneth Frank, professor of sociometrics at Michigan State University, have teamed up to find a way to tell if a state jumping on the environmental bandwagon can mitigate other human factors—such as population growth and economic affluence—that are known to hurt the environment. …