Environment Raw Influencer Feed 
Raw Feeds Notice: within our raw, real-time feeds, the Sociative distillation engine has eliminated ~99% of the noise you see in a typical Twitter feed, however these feeds have not yet had the final touch of human curation you see on our home page and topics. As a result, it's normal for great stories to be accompanied by a few stories that are somewhat off topic or roughly formatted. [ more ]
Worse Than Watergate? The Ultimate White House Scandal Matrix
Mother Jones
6 mentions — 20 hours ago
Worse than Watergate. That's the refrain coming from the Obama administration's critics as it scrambles to tamp down a growing pile of scandals. "The Obama administration's cover-up of the September 11, 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack surpasses Watergate," states Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa). The IRS-tea party scandal "is far ...
Sequester Guts Wildfire Prevention, Sets Up Bigger Blazes
Mother Jones
6 mentions — 20 hours ago
Skyler Lofgren shouts above a din of buzzing chainsaws, leans into his own, and with a final heave topples another 40-foot Ponderosa pine. Lofgren, 27, a forest firefighting crew boss with Flagstaff, Arizona's fire department, felled a dozen trees on Monday, overseeing an outdoor classroom for a new ...
You Need Phosphorous to Live—and We're Running Out
Mother Jones
7 mentions — 3 days ago
Western Sahara, a sparsely populated slice of desert on Africa's northwestern coast, doesn't get much ink as a potential crisis point in the global food system. You've probably never heard of the long-standing independence movement in the Morocco-controlled territory—or that the area harbors vast stores of an element ...
TRAFFIC - Wildlife Trade News - Court case verdict reveals true scale of 2011’s “Annus horribilis” for African Elephants
Court case verdict reveals true scale of 2011’s ...
2 mentions — 17 hours ago
Part of an ivory shipment seized in Malaysia in 2012, said to be en route to China © TRAFFIC Fujian Province, China, 24th May 2013—The sentencing of three men in Fujian Province for their role in smuggling ivory to China from Africa has provided new insights into the ...
These 31 charts will destroy your faith in humanity
washingtonpost.com
2 mentions — 13 hours ago
Earlier this week, Rob Wile of Business Insider posted his graph-heavy opus: “31 Charts That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity.”Naturally, we here at Wonkblog were all eager to see the results. But we’d quibble a bit with Wile’s interpretations of the data. His charts all struck us ...
Boy Scouts: You Can Be Gay Until You Turn 18
Mother Jones
4 mentions — 1 day ago
Boy Scouts: You Can Be Gay Until You Turn 18Today, on a muggy afternoon in Grapevine, Texas, members of the Boy Scouts of America's National Council voted 61-38 percent to stop discriminating against kids in the program on the basis of sexual orientation, overturning a national ban on ...
Obama's Counterterrorism Speech: A Pivot Point on Drones?
Mother Jones
3 mentions — 2 days ago
Obama's Counterterrorism Speech: A Pivot Point on Drones?In recent years, conservative and liberal reaction to President Barack Obama's national security policies has often converged. Conservatives note that Obama has continued (or expanded) many of the Bush-Cheney policies and methods—drones, indefinite detention, military commissions, use of the state secrets ...
Progressive Dems Spar Over Who Will Succeed Markey
Mother Jones
3 mentions — 19 hours ago
Progressive Dems Spar Over Who Will Succeed MarkeyIf Rep. Ed Markey wins the special election to become Massachusetts' junior US senator next month, it'll have at least one unintended consequence: A potentially ugly fight between two progressive Democrats for Markey's seat as the top Democrat on the House ...
Why the Producer of "The Hangover Part III" Has Spent So Much Time in Prison
Mother Jones
3 mentions — 1 day ago
The past few weeks have been particularly busy ones for Scott Budnick, the 36-year-old executive producer of the hilarious, cringe-inducing, and incredibly lucrative Hangover film franchise. In case you hadn't noticed, this is opening weekend for The Hangover Part III, starring Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, and Ed Helms.
Disappearing glaciers: Now you see them, now you don't
Grist
2 mentions — 17 hours ago
Momentous change doesn’t always leave visual cues. A 2008 Obama looks much the same as a 2012 Obama (minus a few gray hairs and Benghazi wrinkles). In some ways, climate change is similar; we can’t exactly see villainous clouds of CO2 strangling the sky. But when it comes ...
Progess on Chemical Regulation, At Last?
Mother Jones
2 mentions — 18 hours ago
Progess on Chemical Regulation, At Last?A bit of positive news this week may have gotten lost in the shuffle. On Wednesday, two senators announced bipartisan legislation to fix our nation's outdated and ineffective chemical regulations. New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg and Louisiana Republican David Vitter announced an agreement ...
Virginia Lt. Gov. Candidate E.W. Jackson: Gays Are "Ikky"
Mother Jones
4 mentions — 2 days ago
Virginia Lt. Gov. Candidate E.W. Jackson: Gays Are "Ikky"That's an actual tweet from the Rev. E.W. Jackson, the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor of Virginia.Jackson, a social-conservative activist with no record of electoral success, was nominated on the first ballot at the state GOP's convention on Saturday and ...
New Louisiana Law Will Jail Journos for Publishing Gun Info
Mother Jones
5 mentions — 3 days ago
On Tuesday, the Louisiana Senate passed a bill that would imprison and fine journalists who intentionally publish information about the state's concealed-carry handgun permit holders. Reporters who violate the law would face penalties of up to $10,000, six months in jail, or both; public safety officials and police ...
Global majority faces water shortages 'within two generations'
guardian.co.uk
2 mentions — 20 hours ago
Experts call on governments to start conserving water in face of climate change, pollution and over-useMost of the areas where water will be scarcest soonest are in poor countries, which have little resilience to cope. Photograph: Stuart FreedmanThe majority of the 9 billion people on Earth will live ...
Seven thrilling facts about carbon taxes from the CBO
washingtonpost.com
3 mentions — 2 days ago
Sure, Congress isn’t exactly on the verge of passing a carbon tax. But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) keeps releasing detailed analyses of the proposal anyway — just in case it comes up as, say, part of a broader budget deal.A carbon tax, you may recall, would impose ...
Obama's Drug Czar Cites Useless Stat to Dismiss Legalizing Pot
Mother Jones
3 mentions — 14 hours ago
Obama's Drug Czar Cites Useless Stat to Dismiss Legalizing PotGil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), dismissed calls for pot legalization on Thursday, citing a recent study by his agency to claim that marijuana is the drug most commonly linked to crime. During ...
I Built This AK-47. It's Legal and Totally Untraceable.
Mother Jones
6 mentions — 2 days ago
The wooden and steel parts I need to build my untraceable AK-47 fit within a slender, 15-by-12-inch cardboard box. I first lay eyes on them one Saturday morning in the garage of an eggshell-white industrial complex near Los Angeles. Foldout tables ring the edges of the room, surrounding ...
Mississippi Could Soon Jail Women for Stillbirths, Miscarriages
Mother Jones
6 mentions — 2 days ago
On March 14, 2009, 31 weeks into her pregnancy, Nina Buckhalter gave birth to a stillborn baby girl. She named the child Hayley Jade. Two months later, a grand jury in Lamar County, Mississippi, indicted Buckhalter for manslaughter, claiming that the then-29-year-old woman "did willfully, unlawfully, feloniously, kill ...
Arctic base evacuated as ice dissolves beneath researchers' feet
Grist
3 mentions — 13 hours ago
Though it carries major supervillain cred, placing a scientific research station atop an Arctic ice floe in an era of global warming is a dicey proposition — even for the Russians.North Pole 40, a Russian science station that monitors pollution and conducts meteorological research, began operating in October ...
Eliminating Hunger, One 3-D-Printed Meal at a Time
Mother Jones
2 mentions — 17 hours ago
Hunger remains a massive problem here on planet Earth. Globally, nearly 870 million people—1 in 8 of us—live with "chronic undernourishment." Meanwhile, obesity stalks us, too—about 1.4 million people worldwide count as overweight, 500 million of whom are full-on obese.The scourge of lingering hunger amid rising obesity is ...
Official at Heart of IRS Tea Party Scandal Spiked Audits of Big Dark-Money Donors
Mother Jones
4 mentions — 2 days ago
You'd have to search long and hard to find a member of Congress not outraged that politics and partisanship crept into the work of the IRS, leading to the wrongful targeting of tea partiers and other conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status. "The American people have a right to ...
See How Citigroup Wrote a Bill So It Could Get a Bailout
Mother Jones
2 mentions — 9 hours ago
See How Citigroup Wrote a Bill So It Could Get a BailoutOn Friday, the New York Times reported on the front page that Citigroup drafted most of a House bill that would allow banks to engage in risky trades backed by a potential taxpayer-funded bailout. The Times notes ...
Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities
Grist
13 mentions — 1 month ago
Solar power and other distributed renewable energy technologies could lay waste to U.S. power utilities and burn the utility business model, which has remained virtually unchanged for a century, to the ground. Back in January, the Edison Electric Institute — the (typically stodgy and backward-looking) trade group of ...
Disappearing glaciers: Now you see them, now you don't
Grist
3 mentions — 16 hours ago
Momentous change doesn’t always leave visual cues. A 2008 Obama looks much the same as a 2012 Obama (minus a few gray hairs and Benghazi wrinkles). In some ways, climate change is similar; we can’t exactly see villainous clouds of CO2 strangling the sky. But when it comes ...
The week in wildlife – in pictures
guardian.co.uk
2 mentions — 18 hours ago
A fennec fox, the smallest fox in the world, in the White Desert (el-Sahara el-Beida), about 500 kilometres (310 miles) south-west of Cairo, Egypt. The desert has a white, cream colour and massive chalk rock formations that were created by sandstorms Photograph: Manoocher Deghati/APIndonesia's marine and forest life ...
California Will Be Spared the Obamacare Apocalypse
New Republic
2 mentions — 16 hours ago
On Thursday, officials in that state offered the first detailed glimpse of what consumers buying health benefits on their own can expect to pay next year. And from the looks of things, these consumers will be getting a pretty good deal.Based on the premiums that insurers have submitted ...
Purity Concerns: German Beer Brewers Foaming over Fracking - SPIEGEL ONLINE
SPIEGEL ONLINE
3 mentions — 1 day ago
Forget environmental concerns: When it comes to fracking, Germans are worried about how it might affect beer quality.
Bloodthirsty wildlife documentaries lack reality and ethics
guardian.co.uk
2 mentions — 1 week ago
What I mean is that, in my experience, most people are highly unlikely to come eyeball-to-eyeball with a large wild animal in their everyday lives, and much of their knowledge of wildlife comes from a screen. If you're North American or get US-produced satellite TV, you've probably learned ...
Is Global Warming Cooler than Expected?: Scientific American
scientificamerican.com
4 mentions — 18 hours ago
LONDON– Several leading authorities on climate change have given a guarded welcome to research suggesting the Earth may warm more slowly than scientists had expected. An international research team led by Alexander Otto of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford has reported its conclusions in ...
Climate change will be slower than thought, study shows – or does it?
guardian.co.uk
2 mentions — 16 hours ago
For anyone who loves to eat chocolate, drink lots of lovely espresso coffee or quaff plentiful amounts of red wine, there's much comfort to be sought from scientific studies.You can pick the studies saying you'll live long and prosper from your chosen potions and ignore the caveats or ...
Obama Counterterrorism - Pastebin.com
Pastebin.com
2 mentions — 2 days ago
It’s an honor to return to the National Defense University. Here, at Fort McNair, Americans have served in uniform since 1791– standing guard in the early days of the Republic, and contemplating the future of warfare here in the 21st century.For over two centuries, the United States has ...
Mount Everest's glaciers shrinking at increasing rate, say researchers
The Guardian
2 mentions — 23 hours ago
Glaciers on or around Everest have shrunk 13% in 50 years with the snow line 180 metres higher than it was 50 years agoResearchers say they suspect that the decline of snow and ice in the Everest region is a result of changes in global climate. Photograph: Rafal ...
New to nature special: the top 10 new species
The Observer
2 mentions — 16 hours ago
From a snail-eating snake to a harp-shaped sponge… Quentin Wheeler on whittling down 18,000 new species to 10 favouritesOn 23 May,the International Institute for Species Exploration announced the annual top 10 new species for the sixth time. A committee of taxon experts led by Dr Antonio Valdecasas of ...
Summer 2013
OnEarth Magazine
2 mentions — 19 hours ago
Los Angelenos are at long last seeing the error of their ways and taking a very different view of their city -- and themselves.The City of Angels has gone by a few other names over the years: the city of water theft, the city of gridlock, the city ...
Consensus Statement from Global Scientists
MAHB
3 mentions — 2 days ago
Global scientists sign message on Scientific Consensus on Maintaining Humanity’s Life Support Systems in the 21st Century: Information for Policy Makers. Please find the Executive Summary below and follow the links to read the Full Consensus Statement, Endorse the Message to World Leaders, and view a list of ...
Study Is First To Chart Amphibian Populations' Decline In U.S. : NPR
NPR
2 mentions — 14 hours ago
Populations of frogs and other amphibians are declining at an average rate of 3.7 percent each year, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey study.Populations of frogs and other amphibians are declining at an average rate of 3.7 percent each year, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey ...