Free Republic

A Mongolian neo-Nazi group has rebranded itself as an environmentalist organization fighting pollution by foreign-owned mines, seeking legitimacy as it sends Swastika-wearing members to check mining permits. Tsagaan Khass, or White Swastika, has only 100-plus members but it is one of several groups with names like Dayar Mongol (Whole Mongolia), Gal Undesten (Fire Nation) and Khukh Mongol (Blue Mongolia), expanding a wave of resource nationalism as foreign firms seek to exploit the mineral wealth of the vast country, landlocked between Russia and China. From an office behind a lingerie store in the Mongolian capital, the shaven-headed, jackbooted Tsagaan Khass stormtroopers...

The shocking minutes relating to President Putin’s meeting this past week with US Secretary of State John Kerry reveal the Russian leaders “extreme outrage” over the Obama regimes continued protection of global seed and plant bio-genetic giants Syngenta and Monsanto in the face of a growing “bee apocalypse” that the Kremlin warns “will most certainly” lead to world war. According to these minutes, released in the Kremlin today by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation (MNRE), Putin was so incensed over the Obama regimes refusal to discuss this grave matter that he refused for three...

Breathing Emission Particles Turns HDL Cholesterol From 'Good' To 'Bad' Article Date: 18 May 2013 Academic researchers have found that breathing motor vehicle emissions triggers a change in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, altering its cardiovascular protective qualities so that it actually contributes to clogged arteries. In addition to changing HDL from "good" to "bad," the inhalation of emissions activates other components of oxidation, the early cell and tissue damage that causes inflammation, leading to hardening of the arteries, according to the research team, which included scientists from UCLA and other institutions. The findings of this early study, done in mice,...

Despite the improvements, 4 in 10 Americans live where pollution levels are often dangerous to breathe. Since the ALA began studying particle pollution, almost all of the most polluted cities have consistently remained among the worst. Pittsburgh has been one of the 10 most polluted cities since 2004. The cities of Bakersfield and Merced, in California, are the most polluted cities in the U.S. this year and have been among the 25 most polluted since at least 2004. They are among many California cities, including Los Angeles, that have struggled with pollution for some time. The ALA’s 2013 “State of...

Previewing an upcoming story for NBC's Rock Center on Friday's Today, correspondent Ann Curry warned that tribes of the Amazon rain forest "are sharpening their spears and preparing their blow guns to fight Ecuador's new plan to auction as much as 8 million acres of the rain forest for oil drilling." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] She then cited Boston University biology professor Kelly Swing arguing that "America, a top importer of oil from Ecuador, shares responsibility for this coming conflict....And the toxic legacy of past oil drilling in other parts of the rain...

BOSTON — San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer is giving Democrats a taste of the divisive, big-spending primary battles that have caused Republicans so much heartburn over the past four years.And he says it’s for their own good.The former hedge fund trader-turned-philanthropist is bankrolling a far-flung political operation pushing environmental causes and candidates, including his pricey effort to torpedo the Keystone XL oil pipeline. He's increasingly drawing scrutiny for trying to take down the Senate candidacy of Massachusetts Rep. Stephen Lynch, a Democrat who has expressed support for Keystone.Steyer is signaling that his efforts against Lynch are just the beginning of...

When you buy a car, there are various ratings outfits in the business of calculating the true cost of owning that particular vehicle, inc. insurance, depreciation, maintenance, cost of repairs, etc. Such a comprehensive model is surely more realistic than just looking at the monthly payment or sticker price, and the customer knows if they're actually making a cost-effective, bottom-line decision. But even if you buy-into the now imploding globaloney scam, wouldn't it make sense to apply similar logic to calculate the entire environmental impact of electric vs. internal combustion cars over the full service life... esp since the actual...

And the environmental pressure groups wanted you to believe solar energy was “clean” and “green.” If that’s true, then why do we keep hearing the words “toxic” and “hazardous” connected with the production of solar panels – especially with the companies that fail? The latest example of phony eco-purity is Abound Solar, which declared bankruptcy last summer after it had received $70 million of a $400 million Department of Energystimulus loan guarantee. According to news reports from Colorado, where Abound was based, the state Department of Public Health and Environment found 2,000 pallets of solar panels that couldn’t be sold...

The import or export of mercury is set to be banned © ShutterstockAfter six days of complex discussions in Geneva last week, governments from around the world agreed to a global, legally-binding treaty on Saturday to limit mercury use. This is the first new major environmental treaty in over a decade.The Minamata Convention on Mercury – named after the Japanese city where thousands of residents fell ill with mercury poisoning in the 1950s – covers a range of products and processes where mercury is used or released. Countries will be invited to ratify the treaty, which took four years to...

People have been warning us for years that drilling for oil in the Alaskan arctic would lead to big environmental trouble. It’s not that the technology hasn’t advanced to the point where it can be done safely, but those nasty people in charge of the projects just don’t care about the environment. These Mother Earth Hating Monsters would clearly let the whole thing go to H. E. double toothpicks and ruin the pristine beauty of the wilderness. Well, I guess they turned out to be right. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has agreed to plug at least one additional...

Are the stars finally aligned for a global climate change treaty? After years of frustration, momentum seemed to change in an instant last Monday. President Obama’s second inaugural address made it clear he was going to lead the world on the issue, his words a “clarion call to action” as one observer put it. Obama’s first term was marked by one failure after another on the climate issue. For instance, his efforts to craft an agreement at Copenhagen in December 2009 were frustrated by developing nations, and subsequent conferences, such as the one last November and December in Doha, have...

A wayward dolphin that meandered into a polluted urban canal, riveting onlookers as it splashed around in the filthy water and shook black gunk from its snout, died Friday evening, marine experts said. The deep-freeze weather hadn’t seemed to faze the dolphin as it swam in the Gowanus Canal, which runs 1.5 miles through a narrow industrial zone near some of Brooklyn’s wealthiest neighborhoods. … The filthy canal was named a Superfund site in 2010, meaning the government can force polluters to pay for its restoration. For more than a century before, coal yards, chemical factories and fuel refineries on...

In a court settlement with the EPA, Edge Products, a manufacturer of electronic power modules for diesel engines, has agreed to pay a $500,000 fine for manufacturing and selling electronic devices that allowed owners of Chevy, GMC, Ford and Dodge/Ram diesel pickup trucks (2007 and later) to remove the programming for diesel particulate filters from their vehicles. The Ogden, Utah, company is reported to have sold more than 9,000 units from January 2009 through April 2011. This is said to have resulted in an estimated 158 tons of excess particulate matter emissions — the equivalent of 422 new long-haul semitrailers...

BEIJING is frequently shrouded in dense, yellowish smog so thick that the other side of the road is obscured. But the deadly smog that enveloped the city over the past weekend was so bad that air-quality readings from a monitor on the roof of the American Embassy said simply: "Beyond Index". The embassy uses the US Environmental Protection Agency's air-quality index (AQI), which measures the concentration of PM 2.5 (total mass of particulate matter of 2.5-micron diameter or smaller per cubic metre). Such particles are small enough to be inhaled and can damage lungs. The AQI range ends at 500;...

Measurement 'literally beyond index' Despite glowing words of praise from admirers in the neo-commie Obama Administration, by any measure -social security, health care, unemployment benefits, whatever- the booming China of today hasn't got much to do with socialism. Indeed, government handouts are far more prevalent in the US, and modern Chinese 'communist' leadership -who run a tight ship and enjoy a budget surplus- have come right out and said that American entitlement culture (with Obama as it's primary cheerleader) is precisely what's destroying us. So tell me who's the capitalists now: the Chinese may live under an oppressive dictatorship, but they learned not to restrain...

China's Smog Is So Bad No One Noticed A Factory Was On Fire Adam TaylorJanuary 15, 2013China's smog problem is reaching historically high levels, with air quality in parts of the country now 40 times higher than standards set by the WHO. There's also serious visibility problems — and these can have real ramifications. State news agency Xinhua reported Monday that a fire in a 1,000 square foot factory in China’s Zhejiang province went unnoticed for 3 hours as locals couldn't tell the difference between the smoke and the smog blanketing the area. By the time anyone noticed, the fire...

Pot farms wreaking havoc on Northern California environment • Burgeoning marijuana growing operations are sucking millions of gallons of water from coho salmon lifelines and taking other environmental tolls, scientists say. EUREKA, Calif. — State scientists, grappling with an explosion of marijuana growing on the North Coast, recently studied aerial imagery of a small tributary of the Eel River, spawning grounds for endangered coho salmon and other threatened fish. In the remote, 37-square-mile patch of forest, they counted 281 outdoor pot farms and 286 greenhouses, containing an estimated 20,000 plants — mostly fed by water diverted from creeks or a...

........Late Friday night, the EPA said in a news release that it had approved the state rules for part of the state's waterways, but would still impose the federal rules for the rest. According to David Guest of Earthjustice, that means the state rules cover only 15 percent while the new federal rules cover 85 percent — about 100,000 miles of waterways. State DEP officials said they were disappointed the EPA would impose federal rules on any part of the state and vowed to "work with them to craft solutions" to put the state in charge of all pollution rules....

The possibility that autism is linked to traffic pollution has been raised by researchers in California. Their study of more than 500 children said those exposed to high levels of pollution were three times more likely to have autism than children who grew up with cleaner air. However, other researchers said traffic was a "very unlikely" and unconvincing explanation for autism. The findings were presented in the Archives of General Psychiatry journal. Data from the US Environmental Protection Agency were used to work out levels of pollution for addresses in California. This was used to compare exposure to pollution, in...

The macrocycle can trap polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons US chemists have designed a novel macrocyclic molecule that may be able to scavenge an important class of toxic hydrocarbons from the environment. The rectangular cyclophane can trap a wide range of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons – PAHs – several of which are carcinogenic. The molecule, dubbed ExBox, was shown to remove PAHs from a sample of crude oil. Additionally, the crystallised complex of ExBox and particular PAHs contain stacked aromatic rings which could have novel or unusual electronic properties.The team, at Northwestern University in Illinois, constructed the cyclophane by taking an extended...