Photo courtesy of fox_kiyo

U.S. schools buying McDonald’s pink slime rejects
It’s baaaaack. Last month, burger enthusiasts rejoiced after McDonald’s announced that it would no longer be using ammonium hydroxide, an anti-microbrial agent that, when used on inedible scrap meat turns into a pink slime, as the basis for their burgers. But they may have sighed in relief a little prematurely, according to the Washington Post, which recently reported that the “USDA, schools and school districts plan to buy the treated beef…for the national school-lunch program in coming months.” Though the FDA considers ammonium hydroxide as “generally recognized as safe,” food safety advocates and parents beg to differ and have called on the government to stop feeding children beef scraps that were previously destined for pet food. In addition to the moral and health implications of feeding our kids dog food, the anti-bacterial treatment doesn’t seem to be all that effective. According to a 2009 NYT piece, E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in meat from Beef Products Inc., the company from which the USDA and schools are planning to buy the ammonium hydroxide-treated meat.

Navy dumps old, toxic ships into ocean for target practice
The Navy’s ship dumping program is polluting the ocean and scrapping much-needed recycling jobs, reports the Associated Press. For years, the Navy has been dumping its old ships into the ocean as part of a program known as “Sinkex," short for sinking exercises. Though the Navy has found ship-dumping to be an inexpensive way to send its ghost ships to the grave, the problem is that the massive boats are loaded with toxic chemicals like PCBs, asbestos, lead and mercury that may contaminate the water and local fish populations. In fact, new data from a study in Florida supports the conclusion that PCBs, dumped during ship sinking exercises, are leaching from the sunken vessels and are entering the marine food chain, making nearby fish unsafe for human consumption. Late last year, Earthjustice sued the EPA for its ongoing failure to regulate the ship-sinking program, arguing that the agency is “legally required to keep dangerous chemicals like PCBs out of our oceans.” In addition to trashing the ocean, the ship-sinking program takes away recycling jobs that could stimulate local economies and squanders natural resources.

(Photo courtesy of p*p)

Big business attack ads create fear conditions for environmental scientists
Scientists are being pulled out of their labs and attacked by anti-science campaigns in an unprecedented fashion, reports the UK Guardian. Though most have kept mum about the issue until now, recently the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Nina Fedoroff, spoke out about the attacks, confessing that she was “scared to death” by an ever-growing anti-science movement. The attacks, which focus on casting doubt on scientific certainties like climate change and other environmental problems, have come in the form of Facebook page hijacks, email hacks and even death threats. Naomi Oreskes, co-author of the Merchants of Doubt, a book about the links between corporate business interests and U.S. campaigns aimed at blocking environmental and health protections, told the Guardian that these are "massive organized attempts to undermine scientific data by people for whom that data represents a threat to their status quo. Given the power of these people, scientists will have their work cut out dealing with them."

Big Dairy cries giant milk tears as popularity in alternatives spills over
As alternative “milk” varieties like coconut and almond gain in popularity, the dairy industry, purportedly nervous about decreased profit shares, is fighting back, reports Grist. Big Dairy’s most recent ad campaign, “Real Milk Comes from Cows,” highlights the many ways that milk alternatives differ the real thing: from almond milk’s slightly off-color to coconut milk’s "spooky" trick of looking like real milk. Sadly, the dairy industry neglects to point out one of the main and most important differences between its product and the alternatives, which is that most conventional milk (i.e. not organic) is, as a product of industrial agriculture, likely tainted with hormones and pesticides. Milk alternatives may need to be shaken before consumption, but at least their ingredient lists won’t stir you. 

A male polar bear patrols the pack ice edge in the Chukchi Sea, Alaska. (Florian Schulz / visionsofthewild.com)

As portions of the contiguous United States find themselves (perhaps a bit uncomfortably) in winter’s chilly embrace, a recently published study in the scientific journal Marine Biology may shed new light on the wintry lifestyles of the Arctic regions of our country.

During this season, Arctic areas like the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, off the northern coast of Alaska, experience months of ‘polar nights’—times when the sun fails to make an appearance (making for a veritable vampire haven, one might say).

The extreme degree of coldness of these winter months is key to the survival of species like the polar bear and ringed seals, who depend on the restoration of thick sea ice (long since diminished during the warmer spring and summer months) in order to hunt and raise their young.

The uplifting movie Big Miracle, opening this weekend, has the power to educate people across the country about America’s Arctic Ocean, along with the people and wildlife that call it home.

This is the same place Royal Dutch Shell is planning to drill in our Arctic waters this summer—with no viable method to clean up an oil spill in these extreme conditions. And President Obama has the power to stop them.