"The federal government has acknowledged it deliberately excluded data indicating a 20 per cent increase in annual pollution from Canada’s oilsands industry in 2009 from a recent 567-page report on climate change that it was required to submit to the United Nations."
"The U.S. Forest Service is weighing tighter restrictions on aerial fire retardant drops as part of a long-running legal battle over the environmental effects of pouring millions of gallons of the chemical mixture on Western wildlands every year.
Retardant use has soared in recent decades as wildfires have grown larger and more houses have been built on the wildland edge. Nationally, federal and state agencies apply an average of more than 28 million gallons a year, the vast majority of it in the West and much of that in California.
Nearly a third of the retardant used by the Forest Service in the last decade has been in California, where urban development abuts fire-prone wildlands and weather and terrain regularly produce monster blazes.
The proposed limits, outlined in a recently released environmental document, are not expected to cut overall usage. Rather, they are intended to reduce drops on and near waterways, where they can kill fish, and to slightly expand the acreage that is off limits to retardant releases for ecological reasons."
Bettina Boxall reports for the Los Angeles Times May 30, 2011.
Conservative claims that endangered species protections for the 2-inch-long desert pupfish are endangering the lives of U.S. Border Patrol agents flunk the fact-check test, according to a federal official in Arizona.
UK -- "Freedom of information laws are being misused to harass scientists and should be re-examined by the government, according to the president of the Royal Society."
By PETER FAIRLEY
Can we talk? You betcha! Well, once a year at SEJ’s annual conference. Until that stimulating confab rolls around again, the more apt question is: Can we Post, Link and Tweet to share ideas and thus enhance our collective pursuit of environmental journalism?
Reporting guides written by seasoned investigative reporters offer helpful techniques for conducting interviews and using data. Tech Tools offers dozens of free tutorials and videos on branding, website development, blogging, digital audio and podcasting, taking and managing digital photos, shooting and editing video, scripting and voiceovers, and online reporting techniques like crowd-sourcing.
Fox "news" figures like commentator Glenn Beck have led the charge against the environmental movement. "The circus Roger Ailes created at Fox News made his network $900 million last year. But it may have lost him something more important: the next election."
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