MAINE–(ENEWSPF)–December 12, 2011. Lips quivered on ashen faces. Hair stood on forearms. Heads shook and, in some cases, tears formed. The forum, at the Acres USA conference in Columbus, Ohio, last Friday, lasted two and a half hours. For 150 minutes, Dr. Don Huber dispassionately laid out fact after fact,[Read More…]

Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–December 12, 2011.  Continuing a long tradition of public participation in setting organic standards, more than one thousand people submitted comments leading up to the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) meeting in Savannah, GA between November 30 and December 1. View webcast of 4-day meeting. The comments were in[Read More…]

New Executive Order Promotes Unsustainably-Harvested Wood  NEW YORK–(ENEWSPF)–December 12, 2011.  Maine’s Governor, Paul LePage, signed an Executive Order last week permitting the use of unsustainably-harvested wood in the construction of green buildings. LePage’s action undermines the state’s growing green building and sustainable forestry industries, according to the Natural Resources Defense[Read More…]

South Africa–(ENEWSPF)–11 December 2011.  Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed today the set of decisions reached by countries at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, saying they represent a significant agreement that will define how the international community will address climate change in the coming years. After extended negotiations[Read More…]

EPA sued for failure to regulate ocean dumping of PCBs San Francisco, CA–(ENEWSPF)–December 9, 2011. Today, conservation groups filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ongoing failure to adequately regulate a federal ship sinking program that pollutes the sea with toxic chemicals. Earthjustice, on behalf of the Basel[Read More…]

UNITED KINGDOM–(ENEWSPF)–9 December 2011. Media corporations that make and broadcast wildlife programmes and films should pay towards the cost of nature conservation under an existing innovative funding mechanism for the ‘use of ecosystem services’. The idea has been put forward in a paper in Science, led by an Oxford academic,[Read More…]

 Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–December 9, 2011.  A recent study published in the journal NeuroToxicology has found a positive link between exposure to the pesticide propoxur and poor motor development in infants. At the age of two, children exposed to propoxur in the womb experience poor development of motor skills, according to a[Read More…]

Lays industry myth to rest once and for all Pavillion, WY–(ENEWSPF)–December 8, 2011. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released draft study results (PDF) today linking the controversial form of gas development known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to contaminated groundwater. At the urging of Pavillion, WY residents, the agency began investigating[Read More…]

U.S. sets record with a dozen billion-dollar weather disasters in one year Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–December 8, 2011 Billion dollar weather/climate disasters 1980 – November 2011. Download here. (Credit: NOAA) November and the September-November autumn season were warmer than average across the contiguous U.S., according to scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center[Read More…]

Settlement Reached in Dickson County Contaminated Drinking Water Case NASHVILLE, TN–(ENEWSPF)–December 8, 2011. A Tennessee community will be permanently protected from toxic well water and provided with safe municipal drinking water under a settlement reached today among the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), two members of a family whose homestead[Read More…]