An EPA proposal suggests that humans should no longer be used as guinea pigs in pesticide experiments. Photo courtesy of Jean Scheijen.

EPA proposes strict rules on pesticide testing
The EPA recently proposed strict rules meant to keep pesticides manufacturers from paying people to eat or drink pesticides, enter pesticide vapor "chambers," or have pesticides sprayed in their eyes, reports FairWarning. The proposal, spurred on by a 2010 court settlement between Earthjustice clients and the EPA, will essentially make it harder for the chemical industry to use people as guinea pigs, hopefully resulting in fewer of these tests occurring in the first place.

Multiple "Snowmageddons" put cash-strapped cities in a pickle
As New England and the Midwest shovel their way out of the latest snowstorm, penny-pinching government employees are coming up with unusual ways to de-ice their roads. This past week, administrators in Bergen County, New Jersey have started using pickle juice to combat the ice and snow, reports Time magazine. It turns out that the salty solution is much cheaper than road salt and works just as well at keeping cars from sliding off the roads. Meanwhile, the city of Boston continues to pile up with so-called "snow farms," basically huge piles of snow dumped in vacant lots.

Polar bears use ice floes, which are rapidly melting due to climate change, to search for food. Photo courtesy of Florian Schulz.

Polar bear swims hundreds of miles in effort to survive
In a testament to the rapidly deteriorating conditions that polar bears face in a changing climate, researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey recently discovered a polar bear that swam nonstop for more than 200 hours and 400 miles, reports the BBC. The epic journey in the Beaufort sea was most likely necessary due to an increase in melting sea ice, which polar bears travel on to hunt prey. In addition to losing 22 percent of her body fat during the journey, the mama polar bear also lost something that's truly irreplaceable, her baby cub. Check out Earthjustice's Irreplaceable campaign to find out how these Arctic symbols and others are being impacted by climate change.

Rolling Stone profiles the climate change dirty dozen
What do Sarah Palin, Bjørn Lomborg and Fred Upton (R-MI) have in common besides a penchant for making grandstanding remarks? They're also three of 12 people blocking progress on global warming, reports Rolling Stone. Some of the dozen's tactics include: attacking the EPA, giving reputable climate scientists the third degree, spreading disinformation about global warming and just plain lying to the American public. Unfortunately, their laughable efforts to mislead us are actually being taken seriously by some, and in the process risking all of our future.
 

Protesters against hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale. Photo courtesy of Marcellus Protest.

Celebrity disses hydraulic fracturing
Forget traipsing around a creepy island with Leonardo DiCaprio. Actor Mark Ruffalo recently went on a much more daring crusade in his latest roll as a passionate environmental advocate speaking out against the practice of hydraulic fracturing, according to HuffPo. After attending an NYC event called "Fracking and Its Effects: A Panel Discussion," Ruffalo told HuffPo in an exclusive interview that risky technologies like fracking will lead to "greater degradation…and greater catastrophes," urging people to speak out on the issue. Visit Earthjustice's Web site to see how you can help put the brakes on fracking.

High-tech sweatshirt detects air pollution
A pair of NYU grad students with a flair for combining fashion and science have created a high-tech sweatshirt that features an image of pink lungs whose veins turn blue after coming in contact with air pollution, reports the NY Daily News. A tiny carbon monoxide sensor embedded in the shirt can pick up air pollutants from a range of sources, like cars and second-hand smoke. At $60 a pop, it's unlikely that the shirts will be mass produced any time soon, but in the meantime the shirts make quite the fashion statement.

CIA analysts believe the U.S. is ill-equipped to deal with climate change impacts. Photo credit: Tim.Simpson, Flickr

Secret agents discover climate change preparedness hole
Military officials, CIA analysts and outside experts believe that the U.S. government is ill prepared to act on climate changes "that will threaten to bring instability to places of U.S national interest," reports McClatchy Newspapers. Bureaucratic infighting and a lack of funding are just two reasons for this lack of preparation by the intelligence community. Though there's hope that the creation of the CIA Center on Climate Change and National Security is a good first start in closing that information gap, Republican efforts to cut the year-old program may mean that the climate change spies get shut down before they even have time to whip out their night vision goggles and fingerprint dust.

Appalachia wins in mountaintop removal veto
Today the EPA announced its veto of the Spruce No. 1 Mine, a mountaintop removal operation in Appalachia, reports Mother Jones. The agency revoked a Clean Water Act permit for the mine after concluding that allowing the mine to dump its waste into nearby waterways would cause "irreversible damage to the environment." The win is both a symbolic and substantive one for the communities of Appalachia, and is proof that the EPA is finally listening to the public outcry over mountaintop removal, such as the 38,000 letters and comments that Earthjustice supporters sent in asking the EPA to stop MTR's destructive practices. 

Light pollution across the U.S. Photo courtesy of NASA.

 Americans see the light on night bright cities
Approximately 300 counties, cities and towns are beginning to see the light on excessive light pollution by enacting so-called dark-sky legislation that's supported by treehuggers and army brats alike, reports USA Today. Light pollution doesn't just keep you up past your bedtime. Over the years, studies have accused light pollution of causing everything from animal disturbances to bungled military drills and increased air pollution, not to mention all that energy that's being wasted by keeping the lights on when nobody's home.

Labor Department buries Massey Energy mine
This week the Department of Labor dug up a long-forgotten enforcement tool to use against Massey Energy, a repeat-offender of mine safety regulations that made headlines last April when an explosion at its Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia killed 29 people. According to NPR, the Labor Department used a section of federal mining law known as "injunctive relief" to force a settlement against Massey's Freedom Mine #1 in Kentucky that will require the company to observe enhanced safety precautions, among other things. Check out Earthjustice's Stop Mountaintop Removal Mining campaign to find out how you can eliminate the need for companies like coal-mining companies like Massey in the first place.

Sharks are targeted for their fins to make shark fin soup. Photo courtesy of sxc.hu

Congress puts the kibosh on shark fin soup
Last week, Congress adopted legislation to curb shark finning, the practice of chopping off a shark's fins and dumping the finless shark back into the water, all so that people can dine on shark fin soup, reports the Washington Post. Though shark finning is currently banned off of the Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, the bill will protect sharks off of all U.S. coasts by requiring vessels to land sharks with their fins attached, helping to restore endangered shark populations.

Oil spill probe undermined by conflict of interest
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board has alleged that the investigation into the cause of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has been tainted because Transocean and Cameron, two companies with a stake in the investigation's outcome, have been allowed to participate in the examination. Allowing these two companies is a bit like asking a bank thief to help investigate a robbery that he/she was involved in, but there's no word yet on whether the allegations will be taken seriously. In the meantime, Earthjustice is working hard to make sure those guilty of causing the biggest environmental disaster in the U.S. are held accountable.

The HSUS recently released a video on sow abuse at Smithfield farms. Photo courtesy of garwee, sxc.hu

Oil spill sand berms saturated in failure
Miles of sand berms built to protect the coastline during the Gulf oil spill that cost millions of dollars were a huge waste of money, according to a presidential oil spill commission. During the spill, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal strongly insisted on having the berms, despite scientists and federal agencies raising concerns over the berms' potential effectiveness. Yet, as the Associated Press quoted coastal scientist Rob Young as saying, the berm effort has so far done little more than draw "a pencil line of sand." Ouch.

EPA sluggish on coal ash regulations
Two years after the Tennessee coal ash spill released more than 1 billion gallons of toxic coal slurry that destroyed homes and the area's livelihood, the EPA is still "sitting on its ash," reports Mother Jones. Despite EPA administrator Lisa Jackson's pledge early on to investigate coal ash sites, there is still no regulation of coal ash dumps, an unsettling fact that has prompted Earthjustice and others to call on the EPA to finally protect the public from the dangers of coal ash.

Wolverines will have to wait for the protection they deserve. Photo courtesy of Lory Joly at http://oas.visitsweden.com

Leaked email reveals Fox News' climate change bias
Nonprofit media research center Media Matters recently came across an email showing that a top Fox News official ordered staff to cast suspicion on any mention of climate change science during their news reports, reports the Guardian, explaining that "it is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies." With this latest revelation, it's no wonder then that a recent survey found that Fox News viewers are "significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources."

Wolverines told to get in line for endangered species protection
Despite being fierce hunters, wolverine populations are on the decline, enough so to be considered endangered by federal wildlife officials, reports the Associated Press. Still, thanks to a backlog of other species that are in more imminent danger, the largest member of the weasel family won't be reaping the benefits of endangered species protection anytime soon. Instead, they'll need to get behind other species on the list, whose numbers total in the hundreds.

Lake Tahoe photo courtesy EPA

As a child, Earthjustice client Michael Donahoe spent many early mornings waterskiing along the west shore of Lake Tahoe. The lake was so clear that he could see a hundred feet down into its depths.

"It was a glassy, beautiful, blue lake," said Donahoe. "The boulders that were down there, it looked like you could reach out and touch them."

Today, Lake Tahoe's famed clarity has been clouded by increased human activity and urban development that has degraded the lake's air and water quality. Though the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency's duty is to protect and restore the lake, it has instead acquiesced to private developers by downplaying existing regulations.

BPA was recently discovered in cash. Photo courtesy of stock.xchng

BPA found in cash
BPA, that ubiquitous, hormone-disrupting chemical that's made its way into everything from baby bottles to can liners, can now also be found in money, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. A study released by Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families found that 21 out of 22 $1 bills contained small amounts of BPA, which has been linked to cancer, diabetes and neurological problems. And since BPA is also found in cashier receipts, it might be time to cash in on the dollar.

EPA spooked by industrial polluter bogeymen
EPA suddenly is dragging its feet on implementing a whole host of new clean air rules, from regulations on soot and toxic emissions from industrial polluters to limitations on smog, reports Grist. The new rules, brought on by Earthjustice litigation, would cost pennies to implement compared to the billions in annual health benefits they're expected to deliver, but thanks to intense industry pressure it looks like for the time being clean air advocates will be left holding their breath.