Posted by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
As reported in the Idaho Falls Post Register (subscription required): Compound 1080, a pesticide that is highly toxic to humans and animals and has no known antidote, is the poisoning agent in a rash of dog deaths in a two-block...
Posted by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment
A new study from Virginia Tech and WVU researchers finds a connection between the ecological health of Appalachian streams and cancer deaths in the region. (Hat tip to Ken Ward, Jr. at the Charleston Gazette.) Published in the journal EcoHealth this month, the first-of-its...
Posted by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment
A giant, inflated rubber ducky graced Baltimore’s Inner Harbor yesterday, where it was clearly visible to chemical industry leaders attending the annual GlobalChem conference at the hotel next door. Flanked by parents, kids, nurses, and public health advocates, the brave...
Posted by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment
As promised, this week more than two hundred activists flood Washington to lobby Congress for legislation to curb mountaintop removal mining. I met a number of the people in town for the Alliance for Appalachia's Week in Washington to End...
Posted by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment
Add mountaintop removal to the threats facing bees and other pollinators. The AP reports that Kentucky’s state legislature is considering a bill encouraging coal companies to mitigate the effects of mountaintop removal mining on bees by planting bee-friendly vegetation on “reclaimed” mountaintop removal...
Posted by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment
Coalfield residents and friends from around the country are coming together again this March for the 5th annual Week in Washington to End Mountaintop Removal. Organized by the good people at the Alliance for Appalachia, this week of action couldn’t come...
Posted by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming
Hello from beautiful Charleston, West Virginia! Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship and Bobby Kennedy face off again tonight at the University of Charleston's Forum on the Future of Energy and I'll be there livetweeting the event right here. You can also...
Posted by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment
There's an interesting conversation about saving bees over at the New York Times opinion page today. Entomologists and beekeeping experts weigh in on what we now know about the recent honey bee decline. Their general message on the status of...
Posted by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment
Huffington Post blogger Joseph Freeman highlights this video celebrating honey bees from five brothers in California. Ice cream maker Haagen-Dazs commissioned the work as part of its ongoing efforts to raise awareness and funds to fight the honey bee crisis. (We're told that "The dancing...
Posted by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has produced its long awaited Colony Collapse Disorder Progress Report as mandated in the 2008 Farm Bill. This is a positive sign after previous confusion and a lack of clarity about what USDA was doing...
Posted by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment
Pollination by insects, mainly bees, is worth $217 billion worldwide each year, according to a study recently published in Ecological Economics and highlighted in Business Week. That's equivalent to 9.5% of the world's crop production. (And two-and-a-half times as much...
Posted by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment
Listen, I like a good mystery. But not when it comes to my food. Mystery meat? Bad. The continuing colony collapse disorder mystery, threatening the bees that pollinate our crops? Even worse. If government agencies have information that could...
Posted by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment
Honey bees are critical to U.S. agriculture. And with no solid solutions to Colony Collapse Disorder, U.S. hives continue to dwindle. This spring, beekeepers lost an estimated 29% of their bees to Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD. You’d think that...
Posted by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment
A national survey released this week shows honey bee losses on the rise this year, prompting the state of Pennsylvania to pump money into colony collapse disorder (CCD) research. The Apiary Inspectors of America's annual survey indicated 36.1 percent of commercial...
Posted by Melissa Waage in Health and the Environment
If someone offers to sell you a beehive out of the back of a truck this spring, do not buy it, even if it’s a really good deal. Because those bees may be hot.That’s right—the law of supply and demand...
