EcocentricHealth
Does it look like a bad day to go out for a run? Maybe a little too hazy out there? Here’s a tip: It is. Don’t do it.
A study released today by Hong Kong University and published in the journal Environmental Research has found that lower visibility due to pollution has a direct correlation with increased rates of mortality in Hong …
EcocentricUncategorized
China announced via its state-run media yesterday that more nuclear power plants will be built during the nation’s next Five Year Plan, from 2011-2015. It’s not exactly new news, per se, as it’s been well known that China’s nuclear power sector has been expanding for some time in concert with the nation’s goal to generate 15% …
EcocentricWeather
Residents of Brisbane, Australia must have woke up Thursday morning with at least some sense of relief. The swollen Brisbane River that runs through the nation’s third largest city did not reach the catastrophic levels as they were predicted to overnight. With at least 25 dead and a dozen still missing, Australia did not face an easy …
EcocentricEcocentric
It’s another miserable day for flood-stricken Queensland, with parts of Brisbane being evacuated after the city’s river burst its banks on Tuesday afternoon. Local reports say the Brisbane roads that haven’t been closed due to flooding are choked with fleeing residents.
Yesterday, flash floods roared through a valley nearby, crashing …
EcocentricFood
On Wednesday, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization announced that food prices for basic commodities had hit record highs last month – above and beyond the soaring prices in 2008 that sparked worldwide protests and food hoarding from Haiti to Egypt to the Philippines. Though the news has yet to evolve into the kind of crisis …
EcocentricWildlife
A behemoth bluefin tuna sold for a record 32.49 million yen — or about $396,000 — in Tokyo’s famed Tsukiji fish market on Wednesday, smashing the 2001 record when a bluefin auctioned for 20.2 million.
The fish, bought by a sushi restaurant in Tokyo’s Ginza district and a Hong Kong sushi chain, weighed in at market at an …
EcocentricUncategorized
A quick update on the shark front: In one of the first acts coming back from his Hawaiian vacay, President Obama signed the Shark Conservation Act of 2010 into law on Tuesday.
The bill, which I wrote about here a couple weeks back after it passed the Senate, will tighten the ban on shark finning — the practice of catching sharks, …
EcocentricUncategorized
The AP is reporting that Zhao Lianhai, the father arrested for protesting China’s tainted milk scandal after his son fell ill with kidney stones, may have been released on medical parole.
If it’s true, however, it’s unclear what the conditions of his release are; his lawyer told the news wire that he had been unable to reach Zhao since …
EcocentricOceans
As New York shovels out of the snow and LA digs out of the mud, Australians are facing their own onslaught of extreme weather. The worst floods in half a century have hit the central and southern parts of Queensland, forcing at least 1000 residents to evacuate their homes with warnings that the worst may be yet to come as rivers in the …
EcocentricEndangered Species
Sharks caught a break yesterday after the Senate passed a piece of important legislation aimed at reducing the number of sharks finned in U.S. waters. The Shark Conservation Act of 2009 passed the Senate on Monday, strengthening existing legislation by closing a few gaping loopholes in the law, and is now due to move to the House.
The …
