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By Dominic Lieven $23.73
By Jeanette Winterson $25.00
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By Amy Goodman — Twenty years ago, the Exxon Valdez supertanker spilled at least 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s pristine Prince William Sound. The consequences of the spill were epic and continue to this day, impacting the environment and the economy.
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 AP photo / Elizabeth Dalziel
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By Scott Ritter — Forget about terrorism for a moment. The potential catastrophe that climate change could unleash on America makes every other national security crisis pale in comparison. President Obama cannot secure the homeland without addressing this global emergency.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Critics who argue that he is asking Congress to do too much are finding it far easier to talk about an overloaded system than to tell those without health insurance that they will have to wait a few more years.
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By Ellen Goodman — Amid the talk of generational conflict in these depressed times, there’s a chance for the boomer generation to make a virtue—or a revolution—out of the necessity of working longer.
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By Marie Cocco — An idea that has been around for years now has reached that rarest of moments: There is a political environment that should, if reason prevails, produce legislation to require the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products.
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 Flickr / cikaga jamie
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A team of researchers has found that sea levels could rise up to three times higher over the next century than U.N. estimates have indicated. The findings have dire implications for the 600 million people who live in vulnerable areas. Scientists gathered in Denmark said they expect polar and glacial melting to accelerate.
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 Flickr / kimberlyfaye
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The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives had hoped to set an environmental example, but going green is turning out to be a bit of a challenge for the cigar-chomping Washington types.
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By Amy Goodman — The American Chemistry Council assures us that “we make the products that help keep you safe and healthy.” But U.S. consumers are actually exposed to a vast array of harmful chemicals and additives embedded in toys, cosmetics, plastic water bottles and countless other products.
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 NASA / JPL
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NASA’s first effort to loft a satellite to help scientists determine where carbon dioxide is produced and stored around the globe ended in failure when the $270 million spacecraft crashed near Antarctica.
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 DFID / Hassan Bipul
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Analysis is finding that, amid the historic neglect that rich nations show toward the poor, developing countries have received less than 10 percent of the funds promised to them by the developed world. This comes as countries in the global south struggle to respond to the myriad concerns about global warming.
Posted on Feb 20, 2009
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By Marie Cocco — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s renewed struggle with cancer is both a demonstration of courage and a dismaying reminder that she represents a quota of one.
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 Composite of images from Wikimedia Commons
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Wildfires sweeping across southern Australia have killed more than 170 people, a number that is expected to rise. With news that arson could be to blame for some of the fires, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said, “There are no words to describe it other than mass murder.”
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 abcnews.com
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Resilient and ultimately morally bankrupt, international oil darling Exxon Mobil has managed to take the 2008 medal for most profitable American corporation, despite a 33 percent fall in fourth-quarter earnings.
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 Flickr/takomabibelot
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President Barack Obama called for tougher regulations on auto emissions on Monday, promising not to let a sour economy stand in the way of progress. “I want to be clear from the beginning of this administration that we have made our choice: America will not be held hostage to dwindling resources, hostile regimes and a warming planet,” he said during a meeting with environmentalists in the White House’s East Room.
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By Eunice Wong — Hello ladies. Would you consider reusable menstrual items? Please stay with me.
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By Ellen Goodman — The standard male narrative about flying solo to the top, bootstraps in hand, energized only by your own talents, always seemed a bit cockeyed to me. The female narrative was not so much self-effacing as it was realistic.
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 pacific.edu
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Leave it to global warming to ruin both a day at the beach and an entire oceanic ecosystem. Researchers are blaming the environment’s public enemy No. 1 as well as rising seawater acidity for what has been the slowest coral growth rate at the Great Barrier Reef in more than 400 years.
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By Ellen Goodman — “Virginity pledges” are one of the ways that government officials measure whether abstinence-only education is “working.” They count the pledges as proof that teens will abstain. It turns out that this is like counting New Year’s resolutions as proof that you lost 10 pounds.
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 AP photo / Craig Ruttle
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By Chris Hedges — The free market and globalization, promised as the route to worldwide prosperity, have been exposed as a con game. We will either find our way out of this mess by embracing an uncompromising democratic socialism or we will continue to be fleeced and impoverished by our bankrupt elite.
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By Amy Goodman — A Utah student’s disruption of a federal auction has temporarily blocked a Bush-enabled land grab by the oil and gas industries.
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California’s governor tells “60 Minutes” how he went from a guy who drives a Hummer to a guy who drives a Hummer that runs on vegetable oil and why he wouldn’t count out a run for the White House.
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Rick Warren’s work on the environment, poverty and AIDS make him hard to pigeonhole, but a recent interview, during which he compared homosexuality to incest and pedophilia, crossed a line.
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By Marie Cocco — Today’s brainteaser: Name the top female executives who were forced to go before Congress, explaining why their companies made multibillion-dollar mistakes that helped wreck the economy but nonetheless deserve billions in taxpayer bailouts.
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Keith Olbermann, in this comma-laden “Countdown” diatribe, really lets loose on the idea of George Bush’s legacy being anything but a dishonorable, terror-filled and disastrous eight years.
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By Amy Goodman — President-elect Barack Obama introduced his principal national security Cabinet selections to the world Monday and left no doubt that he intends to start his administration on a war footing. It is revealing that his choice for national security adviser is a director of Boeing, a weapons manufacturer, and Chevron, an oil giant.
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Thinking of whipping up another tuna casserole? You may change your mind after reading this convincing expose by Jane M. Hightower, a San Francisco doctor.
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By Marie Cocco — This week marks a decade since a consortium of state attorneys general negotiated the landmark settlement of lawsuits against tobacco companies. The results are in: Cigarette consumption has declined by 28 percent in the past 10 years.
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 White House / Paul Morse
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George W. Bush pardoned 14 criminals Monday, including a convicted violator of the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Of the 14, 12 were from states that voted for the president in 2004. Most had been convicted of drug-related crimes.
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 AP photo / Carlos Osorio
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By Titus Levi — There’s no guarantee that a bailout would save the incompetently managed American automobile industry. However, doing nothing may be worse, especially for the state of Michigan.
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 Flickr / oxfam international
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He may be a lame duck, but the president still has the power to mess with America. His latest project: pushing through rule changes that would reduce protections for endangered species. Given the wonky complexities of the rule-changing process, it will be difficult for Barack Obama to undo the damage, but then that’s the whole point.
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 AP via YouTube
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How will an Obama administration differ its predecessor in terms of climate change? President-elect Barack Obama made a virtual appearance at a Los Angeles climate conference to drop some hints.
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 newsweek.com
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After weeks of deliberation about former Democrat-turned-independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, congressional leaders from his former party came to some conclusions Tuesday about his political future.
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 Flickr / Brave New Films
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By Marie Cocco — The giant discounter is the only store where hard-squeezed consumers can afford to buy anything, and so it has kept posting sales gains amid the retail bloodbath.
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 imdb.com
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Here’s a solution to the energy crisis Americans are sure to love: A company called Geoplasma is building a plant in Florida that will vaporize garbage with a plasma torch, turning 1,500 tons of waste into 60 megawatts of the good stuff. It may not be as clean as solar, but hey, America is the Saudi Arabia of trash.
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 bfs.admin.ch
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If first you don’t succeed, get a new planet. A new World Wildlife Fund survey has found that, given the current rate of global consumption and taking into account the capacity of the Earth to regenerate its own resources, the human species will need an entirely new planet by mid-2030 to keep up with our demand for resources and waste disposal.
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 Flickr / Oop
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The chemical BPA is common in plastic products such as baby bottles and food containers, despite concerns among scientists and environmentalists about its safety. The FDA has defended BPA use and recently turned to an outside panel for backup. That group of scientists, however, ended up criticizing the agency’s guidelines.
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 AP photo / Gerald Herbert
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By Chris Hedges — It is no longer our economy but our democracy that is in peril. Financial collapses lead to political extremism. The rage bubbling up from our impoverished and disenfranchised working class, glimpsed at John McCain rallies, presages a looming and dangerous right-wing backlash.
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 wikimedia commons / Samuel Blanc
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According to a new report, roughly a quarter of the world’s mammal species are at risk of extinction. Deforestation, loss of habitat and hunting are to blame for declining mammal populations around the world.
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 Flickr / dsearis
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Congressional Democrats seemed to have turned in their spine—yet again—Tuesday when they announced they would allow the 26-year-old ban on offshore drilling to expire, a resounding sellout to the rhetoric of the McCain campaign and a reactionary move aimed at accommodating the crisis-ridden financial markets.
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 chryslerllc.com
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With gas-guzzling brands such as Jeep and Dodge, Chrysler has had a particularly hard time selling its cars to weary consumers, but it turns out that the company has three forward-thinking models headed to a showroom near you.
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Carolyn Eisenberg takes a close look at Melvyn Leffler’s “For the Soul of Mankind” to ask whether our current troubles are rooted in a history that continues to haunt us.
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 grizzlybay.org
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After years of looking to energy profits instead of science, Sarah Palin has finally accepted the argument that human activity has led to an increase in global warming. Palin now says, “I believe that man’s activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change.”
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By Eugene Robinson — Talk about role reversal. The Republican Party, which scoffs at the nonsense of “identity politics,” has staked everything on the compelling life stories of its presidential and vice presidential candidates.
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 wikimedia.org
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China’s unceasing economic growth has always worried environmentalists, and a new report by the Center for Global Development may put those concerns on a new level. After increasing power-plant emissions by a third this year, China’s coal-based power sector is poised to be the most polluting in the world ... even worse than that of the United States.
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 Wikimedia Commons / Ansgar Walk
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Not only is George W. Bush’s secretary of the interior trying to rewrite endangered species protections, he also appears to be tuning out public input, which is required by law. Scientists and activists from more than 100 environmental groups have signed a petition demanding a longer, more democratic hearing before environmental protection goes the way of the icecaps.
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