Situation Report

Lt. Gov. Phil Scott stands before the Senate on Tuesday as they debate the GMO food labeling bill at the Statehouse. (Photo: EMILY McMANAMY/FREE PRESS )

burlingtonfreepress.com - by Terri Hallenbeck - April 15, 2014

MONTPELIER – The Senate gave a decisive 26-2 vote Tuesday for a bill that would require labeling of foods that contain genetically modified ingredients, a strong indication that Vermont could become the first state in the nation to enact such a law.

“We are saying people have a right to know what’s in their food,” said Senate President Pro Tempore John Campbell, D-Windsor.

Campbell and other supporters argued that they believe they have written a bill that is legally defensible.

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nwf.org

Environmental campaign group finds ongoing symptoms of oil exposure in 14 species – from oysters to dolphins

theguardian.com - by Suzanne Goldenberg - April 9, 2014

The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico caused dangerous after-effects to more than a dozen different animals from dolphins to oysters, a report from an environmental campaign group said on Tuesday.

Four years after the oil disaster, some 14 species showed symptoms of oil exposure, the report from the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) said.

"The oil is not gone. There is oil on the bottom of the gulf, oil washing up on the beach and there is oil in the marshes," Doug Inkley, senior scientist for NWF, told a conference call.

CLICK HERE - REPORT - Trees, Trash, and Toxics: How Biomass Energy Has Become the New Coal (81 page .PDF report)

The report found that although wood-burning power plants are often promoted as being good for the climate and carbon neutral, the low efficiency of plants means that they emit almost 50 percent more CO2 than coal per unit of energy produced.

pfpi.net - by Partnership for Policy Integrity - April 2, 2014
ecowatch.com - April 4, 2014

Biomass electricity generation, a heavily subsidized form of “green” energy that relies primarily on the burning of wood, is more polluting and worse for the climate than coal, according to a new analysis of 88 pollution permits for biomass power plants in 25 states.

submitted by Mike Kraft

wjf.org - April 2, 2014

“Disasters pose questions of who [is helped] first and who...last,” said Sheri Fink, MD, PhD, a correspondent for The New York Times and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, to more than 1,000 attendees of the 2014 Preparedness Summit  in Atlanta this week. Fink is the author of Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm Ravaged Hospital, about the response by health providers, first responders, volunteers, patients and family members who rode out the storm in a hospital that lost power in the early hours of the hurricane. Fink was the headline speaker for the first plenary session of the Summit.

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