…Evidence for a drop in sperm quality and quantity has included anecdotal reports from sperm banks as well as larger scientific studies. For instance, one sperm bank in Israel says that when it opened its doors 1991, it turned away about a third of the applicants for low quality. Using the same standard today, it would reject more than 80 percent, according to an article in the LA Times. And while the jury is still out on whether there is a real “sperm decline” and what that means for fertility, scientists say if the little swimmers are truly changing, it may be a red flag for harmful environmental toxins or even physiological changes in the human body…
What? You mean they didn’t test the effects before they let the gas companies drill wherever they want?
Guthrie Health and the Geisinger Health System have joined together to study the health impact of Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling.
The study by the two regional health care systems — Guthrie, in Sayre, and Geisinger, in Danville, Pa. — will include development of a health surveillance network that will make patient data available for research purposes.
Health effects that may be investigated first include asthma, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Preliminary results of data analysis may be released within the next year, while other aspects of the research will unfold over the the next five to 15 years, health care officials said.
The long-term goal of the Guthrie/Geisinger study is to learn whether gas operations increase the incidence of diseases such as diabetes and cancer. Researchers also will want to determine whether air pollutants associated with gas drilling are affecting people with asthma and other lung problems.
In the first sign that the Fukushima nuclear disaster may be changing life around it, scientists say they’ve found mutant butterflies.
Some of the butterflies had abnormalities in their legs, antennae, and abdomens, and dents in their eyes, according to the study published in Scientific Reports, an online journal from the team behind Nature. Researchers also found that some affected butterflies had broken or wrinkled wings, changes in wing size, color pattern changes, and spots disappearing or increasing on the butterflies.
The study began two months after an earthquake and tsunami devastated swaths of northeastern Japan in March 2011, triggering a nuclear disaster. The Fukushima Daiichi plant spewed radiation and displaced tens of thousands of residents from the surrounding area in the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine.
A reactor at the Millstone nuclear plant in Waterford, Conn., has shut down because of something that its 1960s designers never anticipated: the water in Long Island Sound was too warm to cool it.
Under the reactor’s safety rules, the cooling water can be no higher than 75 degrees. On Sunday afternoon, the water’s temperature soared to 76.7 degrees, prompting the operator, Dominion Power, to order the shutdown of the 880-megawatt reactor.
“Temperatures this summer are the warmest we’ve had since operations began here at Millstone,’’ said a spokesman for Dominion, Ken Holt. The plant’s first reactor, now retired, began operation in 1970.
The plant’s third reactor was still running on Monday, but engineers were watching temperature trends carefully out of concern that it, too, might have to shut down.
[…] The water from the sound is piped into the plant to absorb heat from pumps and other pieces of equipment. As the sound’s temperature inched upward this summer, Dominion Power received permission from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to measure it at three locations instead of one and to calculate the average in the hope that it would be lower. That did not help on Sunday.
And higher water temperatures could lie ahead. The sound’s temperature usually does not peak until late August.
Eventually, engineers could change the Millford reactor’s intake pipe so it draws water from further below the surface, where temperatures are lower, Mr. Holt said. They could also sharpen their pencils and try to determine whether the plant can operate safely with cooling water above 75 degrees, but neither is a short-term project.
Cloud cover and the mixing of some cooler rainfall might also bring down temperatures, Mr. Holt suggested.
Really, has there ever been another presidential candidate who lied so readily and so shamelessly? Is there some special dispensation in the Book of Mormon for ambitious true believers who avoid honesty on all issues, at all costs? From ThinkProgess:
Mitt Romney has spent nearly a year downplaying the effectiveness of wind energy and other renewable sources of energy. “In place of real energy, Obama has focused on an imaginary world where government-subsidized windmills and solar panels could power the economy,” Romney wrote in a Columbus Dispatch op-ed.
Just days ago, his campaign doubled down on his fossil fuel platform by opposing any extension of the wind production tax credit. If the tax credit is allowed to expire at the end of 2012, as Romney hopes, that could cost the U.S. up to 37,000 jobs.
But while the former Massachusetts governor disparages wind, he changed his story on Wednesday, as he campaigned in the nation’s second largest wind state, Iowa:
ROMNEY: We have got to take advantage of America’s extraordinary energy resources: coal, oil, gas, nuclear, renewables, wind, solar, ethanol, you name it. We’ve gotta take advantage of all of them…
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A Pennsylvania appellate court panel on Thursday struck down provisions in a new law regulating the state’s booming natural gas industry that opponents said would leave municipalities defenseless to protect homeowners, parks and schools from being surrounded by drilling sites or waste pits.
The decision was a defeat for Gov. Tom Corbett and the natural gas industry, which had long sought the limitations, and the governor’s office said an appeal to the state Supreme Court is likely.
The state Commonwealth Court ruled 4-3 in a decision released Thursday that the limitations in the so-called Act 13 violated the state constitution. The opinion’s author, President Judge Dan Pellegrini, said the provisions upended the municipal zoning rules that had previously been followed by other property owners, unfairly exposing them to harm.
Of course, the notoriously corrupt State Supreme Court will have the final word, but you never know.
It’s good when normally non-political (at least, publicly) celebrities like David Letterman come out and attack corporate greed, because I suspect it has more of an impact. Letterman’s right, of course – but no one’s going to do anything to stop it because you can never really have enough money in your campaign chest:
David Letterman held nothing back last week when he voiced his concerns over fracking, calling the oil companies greedy, he plainly explained to America, “we’re screwed.”
The Late Show host went on to point out the issues with water contamination as a result of fracking, saying, “The Delaware Water Gap has been ruined. The Hudson Valley has been ruined. Most of Pennsylvania has been ruined. Virginia, West Virginia has been ruined. Colorado has been ruined. New Mexico has been ruined.”
Fracking is a controversial drilling method used for extracting natural gas. It has spread throughout the U.S. in recent years, despite growing acknowledgement of the risks involved. It has come under even more press in New York state recently, where activists are currently fight against reports that Governor Andrew Cuomo may allow fracking to take place in several counties.
Letterman joins fellow commedian, host of Late Night, Jimmy Fallon, who also recently discussed fracking on his show. Fallon joined Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono on stage for a song, titled “Don’t frack my mother.”
