Food Labels May Not Get Calories Right - Health News Story - KIRO Seattle

Food Labels May Not Get Calories Right - Health News Story - KIRO Seattle

Some foods have more calories than are listed in nutritional information, researchers at Tufts University said.

The authors of a new study said in a news release they measured 29 fast food and sit-down restaurant meals and found they averaged 18 percent more calories than stated.

Ten frozen meals bought at grocery stores averaged 8 percent more calories than their labels said.

The researchers said they chose foods from national chains that were supposed to be options under 500 calories.

They also noted that restaurant meals often came with side dishes that could more than double the calorie count for the meal. ...

US firm kicked out of Peru mining group for pollution | Raw Story

US firm kicked out of Peru mining group for pollution | Raw Story

LIMA (AFP) – Peru's mining, oil and energy association (SNMPE) said Saturday it has expelled US mining company Doe Run from its roster for not cleaning up its pollution problems, which environmentalists say are among the worst in the world.

"It has not shown... any willingness to comply with its environmental commitments and its obligations to the country, its workers, the La Oroya population and its creditors," SNMPE said in a statement.

Doe Run in 1997 took over La Oroya mining complex and the Cobriza copper mine in Peru's central Andean mountain region, where it mines for lead, copper, zinc, silver, gold and a series of byproducts including sulfuric acid.

The US company's La Oroya mining operation was listed in 2007 by the international environmental group Blacksmith Institute as the sixth worst polluted site in the world. ..

Major Antarctic glacier is 'past its tipping point' - environment - 13 January 2010 - New Scientist

Major Antarctic glacier is 'past its tipping point' - environment - 13 January 2010 - New Scientist
...

Richard Katz of the University of Oxford and colleagues developed the model to explore whether the retreat of the "grounding line" – the undersea junction at which a floating ice shelf becomes an ice sheet grounded on the sea bed – could cause ice sheets to collapse.

Warm seas

Climate change is warming the Amundsen Sea, which is at the southern margin of the Pacific Ocean. As rising sea levels push the warm water beneath the ice shelves, it melts them from below, pushing the grounding line higher up the continental shelf.

By raising sea levels, and therefore the grounding line, in their model, Katz's team were able to find the point of no return beyond which the glacier would be unable to recover. That's because the Antarctic sea bed has a small lip in it: it rises slowly up the continental shelf, then makes a slight dip before rising again to the shoreline. The researchers found that as long as the grounding line is on the outer rise of the sea bed, before the lip, small changes in climate lead to correspondingly small changes in the glacier's ice volume.

But as soon as the grounding line moves over the lip and starts to move down into the dip in the sea bed, the situation changes critically. "Once the grounding line passes the crest, a small change in the climate causes a rapid and irreversible loss of ice," says Katz.

Past the point of no return

According to Katz's model, the grounding line probably passed over the crest in 1996 and is now poised to enter a period of accelerated shrinking.

The model suggests that within 100 years, PIG's grounding line could have retreated over 200 kilometres. "Before the retreating grounding line comes to a rest at some unknown point on the inner slope, PIG will have lost 50 per cent of its ice, contributing 24 centimetres to global sea levels," says Richard Hindmarsh of the British Antarctic Survey, who did not participate in the study.

This assumes that the grounding line does eventually stabilise, after much of PIG is gone. In reality, PIG could disappear entirely, says Hindmarsh. "If Thwaite's glacier, which sits alongside PIG, also retreats, PIG's grounding line could retreat even further back to a second crest, causing sea levels to rise by 52 centimetres." The model suggests Thwaite's glacier has also passed its tipping point. ...

Arctic permafrost leaking methane at record levels, figures show | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Arctic permafrost leaking methane at record levels, figures show | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Scientists have recorded a massive spike in the amount of a powerful greenhouse gas seeping from Arctic permafrost, in a discovery that highlights the risks of a dangerous climate tipping point.

Experts say methane emissions from the Arctic have risen by almost one-third in just five years, and that sharply rising temperatures are to blame.

The discovery follows a string of reports from the region in recent years that previously frozen boggy soils are melting and releasing methane in greater quantities. Such Arctic soils currently lock away billions of tonnes of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, leading some scientists to describe melting permafrost as a ticking time bomb that could overwhelm efforts to tackle climate change.

They fear the warming caused by increased methane emissions will itself release yet more methane and lock the region into a destructive cycle that forces temperatures to rise faster than predicted.

Paul Palmer, a scientist at Edinburgh University who worked on the new study, said: "High latitude wetlands are currently only a small source of methane but for these emissions to increase by a third in just five years is very significant. It shows that even a relatively small amount of warming can cause a large increase in the amount of methane emissions."

Global warming is occuring twice as fast in the Arctic than anywhere else on Earth. Some regions have already warmed by 2.5C, and temperatures there are projected to increase by more than 10C by 2100 if carbon emissions continue to rise at current rates. ...

EPA Smog Limit: New Strict Proposal To Replace Bush-Era Rule

EPA Smog Limit: New Strict Proposal To Replace Bush-Era Rule

Hundreds of communities far from congested highways and belching smokestacks could soon join big cities and industrial corridors in violation of stricter limits on lung-damaging smog proposed Thursday by the Obama administration.

Costs of compliance could be in the tens of billions of dollars, but the government said the rules would save other billions – as well as lives – in the long run.

More than 300 counties – mainly in southern California, the Northeast and Gulf Coast – already violate the current, looser requirements adopted two years ago by the Bush administration and will find it even harder to reduce smog-forming pollution enough to comply with the law.

The new limits being considered by the Environmental Protection Agency could more than double the number of counties in violation and reach places like California's wine country in Napa Valley and rural Trego County, Kan., and its 3,000 residents.

...

Former President George W. Bush personally intervened in the issue after hearing complaints from electric utilities and other affected industries. His EPA set a standard of 75 parts per billion, stricter than one adopted in 1997 but not as strict as what scientist said was needed to protect public health. ...

Perfectly legal: Toxic cadmium, up to 91%, added to kids' jewelry as China gets lead out | World News - cleveland.com -

Perfectly legal: Toxic cadmium, up to 91%, added to kids' jewelry as China gets lead out | World News - cleveland.com -

LOS ANGELES -- Barred from using lead in children's jewelry because of its toxicity, some Chinese manufacturers have been substituting the more dangerous heavy metal cadmium in sparkling charm bracelets and shiny pendants being sold throughout the United States, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The most contaminated piece analyzed in lab testing performed for the AP contained a startling 91 percent cadmium by weight. The cadmium content of other contaminated trinkets, all purchased at national and regional chains or franchises, tested at 89 percent, 86 percent and 84 percent by weight. The testing also showed that some items easily shed the heavy metal, raising additional concerns about the levels of exposure to children.

Cadmium is a known carcinogen. Like lead, it can hinder brain development in the very young, according to recent research.

Children don't have to swallow an item to be exposed — they can get persistent, low-level doses by regularly sucking or biting jewelry with a high cadmium content.

To gauge cadmium's prevalence in children's jewelry, the AP organized lab testing of 103 items bought in New York, Ohio, Texas and California. All but one were purchased in November or December.

The results: 12 percent of the pieces of jewelry contained at least 10 percent cadmium. ...

It's Cold Outside - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

It's Cold Outside - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

Contra Drudge, Bradford Plumer explains why the recent cold snap in North America doesn't disprove global warming:

Even though the 2000s were the hottest decade on record, there were a lot of record lows set in the United States during that time. It's just that there were even more record highs—and the ratio of highs to lows was greater than the ratio during the 1990s, which was, in turn, greater than the ratio during the 1980s, and so on. Note also that the United States is just a small patch of the globe, and while we're bracing ourselves against freakish cold, the central Pacific has been seeing freakish highs. The thing to watch is the overall trend.

Chart from UCAR. ...

Climate change increasing malaria risk, research reveals | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Climate change increasing malaria risk, research reveals | Environment | guardian.co.uk
UK-funded research shows climate change has caused a seven-fold increase in cases of malaria on the slopes of Mount Kenya

Rising temperatures on the slopes of Mount Kenya have put an extra 4 million people at risk of malaria, research funded by the UK government warned today.

Climate change has raised average temperatures in the Central Highlands region of Kenya, allowing the disease to creep into higher altitude areas where the population has little or no immunity.

The findings by a research team funded by the UK Department for International Development (DfID), showed that seven times more people are contracting the disease in outbreaks in the region than 10 years ago.

The team from the Kenyan Medical Research Institute (Kemri) said that while similar outbreaks elsewhere have been attributed to multiple factors including drug resistance and changes in land use, the only change on Mount Kenya is a rise in temperature.

The average temperature in the Central Highlands was 17C in 1989, with malaria completely absent from the region. This is because the parasite which causes malaria can only mature above 18C.

But with temperatures today averaging 19C, mosquitos are carrying the disease into high altitude areas and epidemics have begun to break out among humans.

Kemri is using climate models to predict when epidemics might occur up to three months in advance, giving authorities time to stock up on medicine and warn the public of the dangers.

The institute is also using church meetings and local health clinics to educate people in high-altitude areas on how climate change could be leading to the spread of malaria into their area. ...