"ScienceDaily" - Fastest Sea-Level Rise in 2,000 Years Linked to Increasing Global Temperatures

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110620183242.htm

ScienceDaily (June 20, 2011) — The rate of sea level rise along the U.S. Atlantic coast is greater now than at any time in the past 2,000 years -- and has shown a consistent link between changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level.

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The research, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), was conducted by Andrew Kemp, Yale University; Benjamin Horton, University of Pennsylvania; Jeffrey Donnelly, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Michael Mann, Pennsylvania State University; Martin Vermeer, Aalto University School of Engineering, Finland; and Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany.

"Having a detailed picture of rates of sea level change over the past two millennia provides an important context for understanding current and potential future changes," says Paul Cutler, program

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"Charlotte Dovey" - How your medicine could be draining vital nutrients from your body

By Charlotte Dovey

DAILY MAIL, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1395028/How-medicine-draining-vital-nutrients-body.html#

Medication can do much to alleviate the symptoms that make your life miserable. But in most cases they don’t actually tackle the cause. There is also the risk of side-effects.

And as a new book suggests, they might be adding to your health woes by ‘stealing nutrients from your system or preventing their absorption’. As a result, you could end up feeling worse, or even being diagnosed with another condition.

The book, Drug Muggers: Which Medications Are Robbing Your Body Of Essential Nutrients, has been written by leading U.S. pharmacist Suzy Cohen.

 ‘If you run low on even one vital nutrient, you can experience a cascade of uncomfortable side effects,’ she claims.

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"Jonathan Schell" - Attacking Libya -- and the Dictionary

If Americans Don’t Get Hurt, War Is No Longer War
By Jonathan Schell

Posted on June 21, 2011, Printed on June 21, 2011
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175407/

The Obama administration has come up with a remarkable justification for going to war against Libya without the congressional approval required by the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973. 

American planes are taking off, they are entering Libyan air space, they are locating targets, they are dropping bombs, and the bombs are killing and injuring people and destroying things. It is war. Some say it is a good war and some say it is a bad war, but surely it is a war.

Nonetheless, the Obama administration insists it is not a war. Why?  Because, according to “United States Activities in Libya,” a 32-page report that the administration released last week, “U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve the presence of U.S. ground troops, U.S. casualties or a serious threat thereof, or any significant chance of escalation into a conflict characterized by those factors.” 

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“June Carbone and Naomi Cahn” - The Changing Class Divisions that Tear at Low Income Families

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/619136/the_changing_class_divisions_that_tear_at_low_income_families/

By June Carbone and Naomi Cahn

There is a new, successful family model that combines marriage and work — but only for the middle class.

A new study of newlyweds found that increases in workloads were associated with increases in marital satisfaction for both men and women.  The researchers expected this to change when the newlyweds became parents, and indeed it did — for men. For women who became parents, however, increases in the amount of time and energy they devoted to work were associated with increases in their marital satisfaction. The authorsspeculated that, once they become parents, husbands and wives might respond differently to changes in each other’s workloads; fathers might spend more time on childcare when their wives face high demands at work.

This is important information for those of us trying to balance work and family. On the other hand, increasing numbers of people in the United States are neither married nor employed. Family structure has become a marker of class, and studies can cloak profound differences among different types of families. Unpacking this research requires reconsideration of the relationship between work, marriage, and class. First, limiting the examination to married mothers skews the study from the outset. The most elite women, as measured by education, have become the most likely to marry, a reversal of historical trends.

Second, the most elite women have become the most likely to work. According to 2007 Census Bureau data, only about 26 percent of mothers with a college degree stay home with their children, while more than 40 percent of mothers lacking high school diplomas are full-time homemakers. College educated women are more successful in combining work and family than other groups in part because they tend to have the resources to pay for child care and other help, and because they are more likely to have flexible positions with more generous family leave policies.

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“Christopher Mims” - Supreme Court says Clean Air Act preempts state climate nuisance suits

http://www.grist.org/list/2011-06-20-supreme-court-says-states-cant-regulate-greenhouse-gases

by Christopher Mims

20 Jun 2011

The Supreme Court just ruled that regulating greenhouse gases is the Feds' job, as spelled out in the Clean Air Act. Good thing the Federal government is all over that one. (Sarcasm!)

The decision was as unambiguous as they come: All eight justices on the case agreed that states cannot sue utility companies or other polluters for their greenhouse gas emissions under federal common law. (Sonia Sotomayor recused herself on this one.) Specifically, the states were arguing that these emissions were "nuisances" -- in the legal sense that they harm others, not in the sense that they’re merely annoying.

This is actually probably just as well. Legal scholars have been arguing for some time that attempts to sue for emissions under nuisance law are doomed to go nowhere. By confirming that regulation of greenhouse gases belongs to the Federal government under the Clean Air Act, the justices sent an unambiguous message to litigants that this is not the way to go about trying to put the screws to climate villains.

“Sarah Laskow” - Pipeline industry funded two-thirds of pipeline safety studies

http://www.grist.org/list/2011-06-20-pipeline-industry-funded-two-thirds-of-pipeline-safety-studies

by Sarah Laskow

20 Jun 2011

Wondering whether natural gas and oil transportation pipelines are safe? Why not ask a neutral objective party -- like, say, the pipeline industry? The federal government’s Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is supposed to study and regulate pipeline safety. But as the San Francisco Chronicle discovered, in practice, the agency tends to hand that responsibility back over to the pipeline industry.

In the past decade, it turns out, the industry funded two-thirds of safety studies of land-based pipelines. This happened because the government -- probably in another misguided attempt to save money -- required that someone other than the government pay for at least half of these studies. And outside of the pipeline industry, who is interested in pipelines? Only the people who lives near them and stand to lose both property and health if the pipelines leak. But generally those people aren't rolling in dough, which is why the industry is routing pipelines through their neighborhoods to begin with.

“Jess Zimmerman” - The oceans may be going extinct

http://www.grist.org/list/2011-06-20-the-oceans-may-be-going-extinct

by Jess Zimmerman

20 Jun 2011 3:16 PM

Ocean ecosystems are taking a faster nosedive than anyone predicted. Without urgent action, coral reefs and entire fish species could disappear in a generation. Why is this happening? Do you really need to ask? Hint: It rhymes with shmarbon shmioxide.

CO2 in the atmosphere increases the temperature of ocean water, throwing off the pH and making the oxygen-hogging algae population explode. Result: OCEAN DOOM. Our options for approaching the problem are pretty much:

1. Massive changes to our stewardship of the planet, including reducing carbon emissions, halting overfishing, closing unsustainable fisheries, and nipping pollution in the bud, OR
2. A terrible revenge enacted by a wrathful Neptune, God of the Sea.

“David Roberts” - Standing up for the EPA: the panel that’s sweeping the nation

http://www.grist.org/politics/2011-06-20-standing-up-for-the-epa-the-panel-thats-sweeping-the-nation

by David Roberts

20 Jun 2011

Toward the end of last week, I attended the Netroots Nation conference in Minneapolis, Minn. In addition to reconnecting with old friends, matching several new faces to Twitter feeds, and indulging a degree of intemperance inappropriate for a man of my advancing years, I joined a panel.

It was called "Progressives vs. Polluters: Standing up for the EPA," and it included Miles Grant of NWF, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins of Green for All, and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.). I like to think it was more interesting than any panel devoted to a government agency had a right to be. There was a shared sense of the importance of EPA rules but distinct perspectives on reward and punishment, the inside game vs. the outside game, and other politically tinged topics.

It was taped, so you can watch it here if you're into that sort of thing:

http://www.livestream.com/freespeechtv/video?clipId=pla_300a8b54-4dae-4b6f-813e-d4c9aca5cf85

“Marlowe Hood” - Oceans in Distress Foreshadow Mass Extinction

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/20-8

Published on Monday, June 20, 2011 by Agence France-Presse

by Marlowe Hood

PARIS – Pollution and global warming are pushing the world's oceans to the brink of a mass extinction of marine life unseen for tens of millions of years, a consortium of scientists warned Monday.

Dying coral reefs, biodiversity ravaged by invasive species, expanding open-water "dead zones," toxic algae blooms, the massive depletion of big fish stocks -- all are accelerating, they said in a report compiled during an April meeting in Oxford of 27 of the world's top ocean experts.

Sponsored by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), the review of recent science found that ocean health has declined further and faster than dire forecasts only a few years ago.

These symptoms, moreover, could be the harbinger of wider disruptions in the interlocking web of biological and chemical interactions that scientists now call the Earth system.

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“Lisa Savage” - US Mayors Tell Congress: Bring War Dollars Home

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/20-7

Published on Monday, June 20, 2011 by CommonDreams.org

by Lisa Savage

BALTIMORE, June 20 – Mayors from around the US met in Baltimore this week to set public policy for the millions of people living in big cities, depending on municipal services to stay safe. While Congress considered allocating another $118 billion to conduct wars next year – and President Obama absurdly maintained that the costly bombing of Libya is not an act of war, and thus not subject to Congressional oversight – mayors listened to the people.

Anti-war activists rallied in Austin, Texas earlier this year carrying the 'Bring Our War Dollars Home' message. Today, the US Conference of Mayors passed a resolution calling for the same. Following a lively debate about adding stronger language supporting troops and their families, and adding President Obama as a recipient, mayors voted in their June 20 plenary session to call on the federal government to stop funding wars, and bring the money home.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors' Resolution Number 59 was only a twinkle in the eye two years ago when a coalition of citizens alarmed at endless wars and catastrophic budget shortfalls coined the slogan “Bring Our War Dollars Home” at activist Sally Breen's kitchen table in Windham, Maine. That state's campaign took off on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2010, and soon spread nationally with adoption by the women-led peace group CODEPINK. Locations across Maine soon adopted war dollars home resolutions, including Deer Isle, Portland, and School Administrative District #74, followed by Northampton and Amherst, Massachusetts and, most recently, by Hartford, Connecticut.

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