Situation Report

submitted by Margery Schab

Natural gas well holding tanks sit next to a subdivision of homes in Denton, Texas, Thursday, May 29, 2014. (AP Photo/LM Otero) | ASSOCIATED PRESS

huffingtonpost.com - by Emily Schmall - June 19, 2014

. . . For more than a decade, Denton has drawn its lifeblood from the huge gas reserves that lie beneath its streets. The gas fields have produced a billion dollars in mineral wealth and pumped more than $30 million into city bank accounts.

But this former farming center north of Dallas is considering a revolt. Unlike other communities that have embraced the lucrative drilling boom made possible by hydraulic fracturing, leaders here have temporarily halted all fracking as they consider an ordinance that could make theirs the first city in the state to permanently ban the practice.

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Former US Vice President Al Gore
Anthony Harvey/Getty Images for Free The Children

It's time to accelerate the shift toward a low-carbon future

rollingstone.com - by Al Gore - June 18, 2014

In the struggle to solve the climate crisis, a powerful, largely unnoticed shift is taking place. The forward journey for human civilization will be difficult and dangerous, but it is now clear that we will ultimately prevail. The only question is how quickly we can accelerate and complete the transition to a low-carbon civilization.

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submitted by Luis Kun

Click to download Powerpoint chart.

forbes.com - by Dan Munro - June 16, 2014

The Commonwealth Fund in their latest report “Mirror, Mirror On The Wall — 2014 Update” (pdf here).

For this year's survey on overall health care, The Commonwealth Fund ranked the U.S. dead last.

It’s fairly well accepted that the U.S. is the most expensive healthcare system in the world, but many continue to falsely assume that we pay more for healthcare because we get better health (or better health outcomes). The evidence, however, clearly doesn’t support that view.

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CLICK HERE - Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, 2014 Update: How the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally

A coalition of industry groups sued Vermont over the state's new law requiring food producers to put special labels on products treated with GMOs. It makes Vermont ground zero of a very big food fight.

csmonitor.com - by Gram Slattery - June 13, 2014

Tiny Vermont this month boldly went where no US state had gone before, enacting a law to require food producers who treat their products with genetically modified organisms to let consumers know that on the packaging. Now, the state is going, perhaps just as boldly, to court.

A lawsuit filed Thursday challenges Vermont’s GMO-labeling law on grounds that it usurps federal regulatory authority and negatively affects interstate commerce.

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