Daryl Hannah. Photo courtesy of guano

Daryl Hannah faces off against tar sands pipeline
She may have lost her other eye in a standoff against Uma Thurman (aka “The Bride”) in the movie Kill Bill, but when it comes to facing off against environmental evil-doers, actress Daryl Hannah has chick-kicking staying power, reports Mother Nature Network. Her latest standoff resulted in her arrest outside the White House while protesting the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, a controversial network of pipes that would transport tar sands crude oil from Alberta, Canada to U.S. refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. Recently, the State Department gave a green light to the dirty oil pipeline, concluding that it would have “minimal effect on the environment.” Obviously, activists like Hannah disagree. Before her arrest, Hannah told ABC News that “We cannot risk these precious resources and we cannot shackle ourselves to this type of destructive energy future when we have solutions available to us,” adding that “we have American-made, American-grown, clean safe energy.”

Getting inked may give you cancer
Getting an impulsive tattoo may cause you more than just embarrassment when that sub-navel tribal logo starts sagging years later, reports Environmental Health News. New research has found that tattoos contain all kinds of toxic chemicals, some of which have been shown to cause cancer and disrupt your endocrine system. For example, inks can contain phthalates, a commonly used chemical to soften plastics that can mimic estrogen, disrupt testosterone and have even been linked to “feminization of the reproductive tract” and sperm defects. Black tattoo inks can also contain benzo(a)pyrene, a carcinogen so potent that it's often used to grow tumors in animal test subjects. In addition to these new findings, people have known for years that tattoos can cause infections, allergies and scarring, but despite these risks almost half of adults in their late 20s have them. Though the Food and Drug Administration has the ability to regulate tattoo inks, so far it has declined to do so, a decision that may change with this latest tatoo unveiling.

Monsanto's herbicide harms crops genetically modified to resist it. Image courtesy worldwidehippies.com

Monsanto's herbicide harms plants it's meant to protect
Monsanto’s popular herbicide Roundup may be harming more than just weeds, reports Reuters. A recent study by US Department of Agriculture microbiologist Bob Kremer found that repeated and widespread use of Roundup, which contains the active ingredient glyphosate, on crops genetically engineered to withstand the pesticide is harming both the soil and the plants, and potentially reducing crop yields. Unfortunately, Kremer isn’t the only researcher to find problems with glyphosate. Over the years, other researchers have linked glyphosate use to “cancer, miscarriages and other health problems in people and livestock.”
 
Despite these concerns, the government has continued to green-light so-called Roundup Ready crops like genetically engineered sugar beets, adding to the already long list of staple food items that now dominate American supermarkets. According to the Center for Food Safety, more than half of all processed food in U.S. grocery stores—items like cereals, corn dogs and cookies—contain genetically engineered ingredients. Says Earthjustice’s Paul Achitoff, who is currently litigating against the government’s approval of GE sugar beets and alfalfa:

"The main problem for the public at large is increased chemicals in the environment. But you also have consumers’ as well as farmers’ choices being adversely affected. Nobody really wants Monsanto controlling their diet, but that is in fact what’s happening."

When it comes to climate change, the fact is that most Americans don’t know the facts. A study by Yale professors revealed that while a majority (63 percent) of Americans believe in global warming, only half understand that it is anthropogenic (caused by human activity). And when the study tested the public on the science behind the warming, the results weren’t pretty.

On a straight grading scale, more than half of the population surveyed scored an F. Over three-quarters scored either a D or an F. Even once a curve was applied to account for the greater difficulty of some questions, two-thirds still received a C or below. Not exactly cum laude.

However, the study also revealed a surprise.

Part of The Procession of the Trojan Horse in Troy (1773) by Domenico Tiepolo.

If you've ever suspected that Congress thinks of corporate polluters first and the polluted public last, the debacle unfolding in Washington, D.C. this week should leave you with little doubt—and a bitter taste. Many of our elected leaders have hijacked the process by which we fund government agencies to sack the environment like Odysseus did Troy.

The Trojan Horse that is the federal appropriations bill is filled with an unprecedented number of anti-environmental "riders"—provisions added to a piece of legislation that have little to no connection with the subject of the bill itself. And just as the Greeks sought to extinguish the fires of life in Troy, these riders are meant to run down the bedrock environmental protections that were created to keep our environment clean and our imperiled wildlife safe from extinction.

One egregious effort—dubbed the Extinction Rider—would paralyze the nation's ability to protect hundreds of species and turn the decision-making about endangered wildlife into a one-way street where protections can only be weakened, never strengthened.

This is an absolutely inappropriate way to set new policy. It demeans the democratic process and indicates that such extreme measures can't stand on their own—instead, they have to be slipped as stowaways into a must-pass bill.