Yesterday, the Obama administration released its long awaited National Pollinator Health Strategy, a requirement of a presidential memorandum released last June, which directed federal agencies to establish a Pollinator Health Task Force, develop a strategy to protect pollinators and charged the EPA with assessing the effects of pesticides, including neonicotinoids, on bees and other pollinators within 180 days. While it’s promising that the …
Obama’s Ugly Show of Presidential Petulance – Jim Hightower
When the going got tough, Barack got in a huff, and then he got gruff. President Obama has worked himself into such a tizzy over the TPP that he’s lashing out at his progressive friends in Congress. He’s mad because they refuse to be stereotypical lemmings, following him over this political cliff called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It masquerades as a …
5 Surprising Ways to Use Recycled ‘Garbage’ for a Better Organic Garden – Christine Sarich
Growing your own organic food is extremely gratifying, but adding recycling to the mix is like winning the lottery two days in a row. When you mix the self-sustaining practice of growing your own food with the environmentally supporting habit of recycling, you are helping the world two-fold, and you get some tasty offerings in the process. Here are 5 ways to …
Mobile phone bans lead to rise in student test scores
Banning cellphones in schools reaps the same benefits as extending the school year by five days, according to a study co-authored by an economist at The University of Texas at Austin. “New technologies are typically thought of as improving productivity, however this is not always the case,” said Richard Murphy, an assistant professor of economics. “When technology is multipurpose, such …
Fossil Fuel Subsidies To Hit $5.3 Trillion In 2015, Says IMF – Ed King
Subsidies for fossil fuels that cause climate change have soared since 2013, a new study from the International Monetary Fund has revealed. Oil, gas and coal costs will be subsidized to the tune of US$5.3 trillion a year in 2015. The last time the IMF ran the data it calculated they were worth $1.9 trillion. Economists say the latest figures …
Women and Biodiversity Feed the World, Not Corporations and GMOs – Vandana Shiva
The two great ecological challenges of our times are biodiversity erosion and climate change. And both are interconnected, in their causes and their solutions. Industrial agiculture is the biggest contributor to biodiversity erosion as well as to climate change.According to the United Nations, 93% of all plant variety has disappeared over the last 80 years. Monocultures based on chemical inputs do …
Fake Evidence Blaming Russia for MH-17? – Robert Parry
An Australian television show claims to have solved the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 shoot-down mystery – the Russians did it! – but the program appears to have faked a key piece of evidence and there remain many of the same doubts as before, along with the dog-not-barking question of why the U.S. government has withheld its intelligence data. The basic point …
The Complete History of Monsanto, “The World’s Most Evil Corporation” – E Hanzai
Of all the mega-corps running amok, Monsanto has consistently outperformed its rivals, earning the crown as “most evil corporation on Earth!” Not content to simply rest upon its throne of destruction, it remains focused on newer, more scientifically innovative ways to harm the planet and its people. 1901: The company is founded by John Francis Queeny, a member of the Knights of Malta, a thirty …
The future of wind power may not have blades at all – Walter Einenkel
Wired put together a very interesting piece on the renewable energy company Vortex. They are now field testing bladeless wind energy turbines. Instead of capturing energy via the circular motion of a propeller, the Vortex takes advantage of what’s known as vorticity, an aerodynamic effect that produces a pattern of spinning vortices. Vorticity has long been considered the enemy of architects and …
Bernie Sanders Just Introduced Legislation to Fund Free Undergrad Ed with Wall Street Transaction Taxes – Deirdre Fulton
A broad coalition of nurses, students, religious and civil rights groups, environmentalists, labor and housing advocates on Tuesday praised Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) plan to use a so-called Robin Hood tax on stock transactions to fund tuition at four-year public colleges and universities. Sanders introduced two bills on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.—one to eliminate undergraduate college tuition fees for students attending public colleges and universities …










