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Arctic Wildlife Refuge is in danger
Sign Petition to Save Arctic Wildlife Refuge
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Global Warming Is Hitting Kids Hard
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America's cities, blanketed with smog and climate-altering carbon dioxide, have become cradles of ill health and are fostering an epidemic of asthma, according to a new report from a leading group of Harvard University researchers and the American Public Health Association. Particularly hard hit
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are preschool-aged children, whose rate of asthma rose by 160 per cent between 1980 and 1994 (more than twice the national average), the report says. full story
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Most Americans Face Smog Danger
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More than half the United States' population lives in counties — many in California — with hazardous smog levels, according to a report released Thursday. San Bernardino topped counties nationwide in ozone pollution. The annual American Lung Association study says about
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159 million Americans, or 55 percent of the country, reside in 441 counties threatened by air that's heavily polluted with ozone or tiny particles of soot, known as particle matter. full story
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Europe's Moves To Allow GM Corn
May Open Floodgates
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Supermarkets are to get the go-ahead to stock genetically modified sweetcorn from the United States and Canada next week, ending Europe's five-year moratorium on new licences for GM food. Britain is backing the move to bring in the new corn, but critics say that such a decision
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could open the floodgates with at least 30 more GM applications in the pipeline. full story
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Global Warming May Destroy Over
3 Million British Homes
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More than three million homes in Britain could get flooded because of global warming by the year 2080. The cost of water damage would rise from 1 billion dollars a year to 21 billion dollars by 2080 and the number of homes at risk of river and coastal flooding would leap from
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1.6 million to 3.6 million, said a report in the Mirror. People's health could also be at risk from sewage pollution as Victorian drainage systems in the city would crumble under the pressure of persistent and heavy downpours. full story
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'Millions More' At Risk Of
Global Warming Floods, UK Warned
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Another two million UK properties are being placed at increased risk of flooding because of global warming, it is claimed today. A government-backed scientific report highlights decisions that might be needed to protect people, homes, businesses and the environment. It aims to
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identify more accurately the long-term flood risks to cities, towns and coastal communities. full story
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US Heading For Another Election Fiasco
As Reforms Fail
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The United States may be on the way to another Florida-style presidential election fiasco this year because legislation passed to fix the system has either failed to address the problems or has broken down because of missed deadlines and unmet funding targets. Such is the conclusion of
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a damning new report by the US Commission on Civil Rights, a bipartisan government body which previously looked into the Florida mess and found alarming evidence of voter disenfranchisement among poor and minority groups, incorrectly compiled voter rolls and other glaring irregularities. "Many of the problems that the commission previously cautioned should be corrected yet prevail . Unless the government acts now, many of those previously disenfranchised stand to be excluded again," the report said. full story
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Water Flows Down Political Channels
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The group of 30 industrial nations that form the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) "tend to give aid on national interest grounds," says the report. "For example, the United States gives most of its aid for water to Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian-
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administered areas and less than eight million dollars in aid for water to sub-Saharan Africa." The report says that only 38 percent of OECD bilateral aid for water goes to the 30 countries most in need. These include some of the poorest and are inhabited by most of the world's 1.1 billion people without access to safe drinking water. full story
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Close World Bank Climate Change Fund,
Demand NGOs
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19 April 2004 – More than 50 environmental and social justice NGOs and other groups have sent a letter of protest to the World Bank calling for the closure of its new emissions trading fund, The Prototype Carbon Fund. In the year of the World Bank’s 60th anniversary and in the run-up
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intense protests in Washington D.C. at their annual meeting this month, the groups state that the Bank’s new fund is destructive greenwash and has in fact created extra problems for communities and the environment. full story
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Greenpeaces Battles GM Food In Australia
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Greenpeace protesters used magnets to attach themselves to a cargo ship in Australia on Monday and painted the words "Stop GE imports" on the hull as part of a campaign against genetically engineered food. Greenpeace activists dressed as chickens and holding banners protesting
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against genetically modified food also demonstrated outside a conference of the poultry industry on Queensland's Gold Coast.
full story
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New Data Undercuts Case For Re-introduction
Of Snowmobiles In Yellowstone National Park
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Leaked Administration Documents Show Supposedly "Quiet" Snowmobiles Loud Enough to Damage Hearing
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New models of four-stroke snowmobiles —touted as "quieter" by the Bush Administration and supposedly suitable for use in the winter stillness of Yellowstone National Park — are in fact nearly as noisy as the old two-stroke machines. The snowmobiles also are loud enough to damage
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hearing, according to internal Administration documents obtained, and released today, by the Coalition of Concerned National Park Service Retirees, a group of 230 retired employees and senior leaders of the National Park Service.
full story
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World Set Back 10 Years By Bush's
New World Order, Says Blair Aide
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George Bush has had a "devastating impact" on global sustainable development and set the world back more than ten years, says Jonathon Porritt, the prime minister's senior adviser on the subject, today. On a whole series of issues including climate change, international aid, family planning,
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nuclear proliferation, trade and corporate responsibility, "staying true to a discredited model of extreme economic liberalism has set the world back a decade or more", says Mr Porritt. full story
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Fishermen Face Activists' Fury
Over Biggest Seal Cull In Two Decades
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Thousands of Canadian fishermen, watched by outraged animal rights activists, made their way to ice floes off the coast of Newfoundland yesterday to begin what is expected to be the largest seal cull in 20 years. Wielding rifles and, in some cases, clubs known as hakapiks, the fishermen
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are expected to kill 140,000 seals today - some no more than three weeks old. By the end of next month, about 350,000 seals will have been killed and their skins sold to burgeoning fur markets, particularly in eastern Europe. full story
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CARTER SAVAGES BUSH, BLAIR: 'THEIR WAR WAS BASED ON LIES'
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Jimmy Carter, the former US president, has strongly criticized George Bush and Tony Blair for waging an unnecessary war to oust Saddam Hussein based on "lies or misinterpretations". The 2002 Nobel peace prize winner said Mr Blair had allowed his better judgment to be swayed by
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Mr Bush's desire to finish a war that his father had started. In an interview with The Independent on the first anniversary of the American and British invasion of Iraq, Mr Carter, who was president from 1977 to 1981, said the two leaders probably knew that many of the claims being made about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were based on imperfect intelligence. full story
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