"Germany's top climate researcher says he hopes he and his fellow scientists around the world have got it all wrong about global warming. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told Reuters he gets no pleasure at all in being a prophet of doom and hopes he and his colleagues have overlooked effects that could still arrest climate change."
"New horizons in biomonitoring are identifying environmental exposures that may play a role in health problems, including cancer, neurological disorders and diabetes. At their fingertips, researchers already have precise measurements of nearly 150 chemicals in several thousand American adults and children."
"The release of toxics once bound within glaciers may be a little-anticipated consequence of climate change. Adverse effects are likely occurring, or could occur, on almost every continent."
"Changes in tap water chemistry can liberate lead from household plumbing pipes and the mineral scale that coats them, resulting in water that is contaminated only after it leaves the treatment plant."
"Over 3,000 square miles (7,770 sq kms) in Alaska would be protected as critical habitat for the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale, under a proposal issued on Tuesday by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."
"A new top inspector took charge Tuesday of the International Atomic Energy Agency as it faces one of the most turbulent periods in its 52-year history." Also: "The newly elected chemical weapons chief says he will pursue the last seven holdouts — including Israel, Egypt and Syria — to get them to sign a disarmament treaty and submit weapons stockpiles for inspection."
Sandstorms reminiscent of the 1930s dustbowl are becoming more common in Navajo country -- and climate change seems to be a culprit.
"Twenty-five years ago Thursday, a leak of the chemical methyl isocyanate -- MIC -- killed thousands of people who lived near a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. It was the worst industrial disaster in history. Since then, residents of the Kanawha Valley have lived with and periodically complained about the huge stockpile of MIC at a sister facility, the former Carbide plant in Institute."
"Two environmental groups petitioned U.S. EPA today to set national limits for greenhouse gases using the Clean Air Act."
"A large Southern utility said Tuesday that it would close 30 percent of its North Carolina coal-fired power plants by 2017, a step that represents a bet that natural gas prices will stay acceptably low and that stricter rules are coming on sulfur dioxide emissions, which cause acid rain."
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