The Clinton Foundation raised more than $500 million in donations between 2009 and 2012, but only around 15 percent of that money went to actual charity work. RT’s Alexey Yaroshevsky reports from New York with details on what critics have been saying about the Clinton family’s non-profit.
Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage in the U.S. and as refuse or rubbish in the UK, is a waste type consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public. “Garbage” can also refer specifically to food waste, as in a garbage disposal; the two are sometimes collected separately.
The composition of municipal solid waste varies greatly from municipality to municipality (country to country) and changes significantly with time. In municipalities (countries) which have a well developed waste recycling culture, the waste stream consists mainly of intractable wastes such as plastic film, and un-recyclable packaging materials. At the start of the 20th century, the majority of domestic waste (53%) in the UK consisted of coal ash from open fires[1] In developed municipalities (countries) without significant recycling activity it predominantly includes food wastes, market wastes, yard wastes, plastic containers and product packaging materials, and other miscellaneous solid wastes from residential, commercial, institutional, and industrial sources.[2] Most definitions of municipal solid waste do not include industrial wastes, agricultural wastes, medical waste, radioactive waste or sewage sludge.[3] Waste collection is performed by the municipality within a given area. The term residual waste relates to waste left from household sources containing materials that have not been separated out or sent for reprocessing.[4] Waste can be classified in several ways but the following list represents a typical classification: Biodegradable waste: food and kitchen waste, green waste, paper (can also be recycled). Recyclable material: paper, glass, bottles, cans, metals, certain plastics, fabrics, clothes, batteries etc. Inert waste: construction and demolition waste, dirt, rocks, debris. Electrical and electronic waste (WEEE) – electrical appliances, TVs, computers, screens, etc. Composite wastes: waste clothing, Tetra Packs, waste plastics such as toys. Hazardous waste including most paints, chemicals, light bulbs, fluorescent tubes, spray cans, fertilizer and containers Toxic waste including pesticide, herbicides, fungicides Medical waste.
A team of University of Utah seismologists has discovered a reservoir of hot, partly molten rock hidden 12 to 28 miles beneath Yellowstone’s supervolcano–enough to fill the 1000 cubic-mile-Grand Canyon more than 11 times. The pool is over four times larger than a shallower, long-known magma chamber.
The National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded team, developed a new technique that uses both local and distant earthquake data from the University of Utah Seismograph Stations and the NSF-funded EarthScope array of seismometers. The combined data resulted in a better, deeper and more complete image of the system. The newly discovered reservoir carries hot and partly molten rock upward from the top of Yellowstone’s hotspot plume–about 40 miles below the surface.
Yellowstone’s plumbing system is no larger or closer to erupting than before, scientists are just seeing more of it than ever before. Yellowstone is among the world’s largest supervolcanoes, with frequent earthquakes. The team believes these new models help us gain a better understanding of Yellowstone’s plumbing system, and may lead to improved estimates of the potential future seismic and volcanic hazards.
William Gough provides a fresh, Canadian perspective and shares a constructive path forward on global warming and environmental issues. Through his research studies on Polar Bears and the Hudson Bay, it’s safe to say that global warming is a real issue.
Dr. William Gough is Vice-Dean of Graduate Education & Program Development and a Professor in the Department of Physical &Environmental Sciences at UTSC. He completed his M.Sc at the University of Toronto in Physics and a PH.D at McGill University in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. His research includes the climate change impact assessment, hurricanes, climate change in the Eastern Arctic and the climate of Toronto.
In a wide-ranging interview with YaleGlobal’s Nayan Chanda, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway and former Director General of the World Health Organization discussed various challenges facing the world. She expressed guarded optimism about the climate change summit in Paris but was concerned about the growing economic inequality in the developed world and rising anti-immigrant, anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe. Brundtland was one of the intended targets of Norwegian anti-Islamic fanatic Anders Behring Breivik who killed dozens of socialist youth in July 2011.
Dahr Jamail, Truthout joins Thom Hartmann. In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill five years ago – attorney Kenneth Feinberg was tasked with helping the victims of one of the worst industrial accidents in American history. But now those very same victims are bringing him to court. Why is that? And what should it tell us about the legacy of the Gulf Oil spill?
If you believe media reports, Gajendra Singh, the man who died after hanging himself at a political rally in Delhi on Wednesday, was hardly the poorest of farmers.
Journalists visiting his village in Rajasthan found that his family owned more than 10 acres of land, growing wheat, gooseberry and teak.
To put things into perspective, 65% of land holdings in India are small, often less than an acre. In states like Rajasthan, however, medium and large holdings – over 15 acres per plot on average – make up 70% of all farmland.
Mr Singh’s family lives in a single-storey six-room house. The building and the fields around it speak of an “affluent background”, according to the Indian Express newspaper.
research projects aimed at confronting the challenge of climate change using the levers of law, policy, and economics, as well as public health and science, have been awarded grants in the inaugural year of President Drew Faust’s Climate Change Solutions Fund.
On April 7, 2014, President Drew Gilpin Faust announced the creation of the Harvard University Climate Change Solutions Fund to support research initiatives intended to hasten the transition from carbon-based energy systems to those that rely on renewable energy sources, and to propel innovations needed to accelerate progress toward cleaner energy and a greener world. To launch this Fund as an element of the University’s broader fundraising efforts for energy and environment, President Faust has committed $1 million in grant funding to be allocated at the outset of the 2014-2015 academic year.
Welcome to Transition Studies. To prosper for very much longer on the changing Earth humankind will need to move beyond its current fossil-fueled civilization toward one that is sustained on recycled materials and renewable energy. This is not a trivial shift. It will require a major transition in all aspects of our lives.
This weblog explores the transition to a sustainable future on our finite planet. It provides links to current news, key documents from government sources and non-governmental organizations, as well as video documentaries about climate change, environmental ethics and environmental justice concerns.
The links are listed here to be used in whatever manner they may be helpful in public information campaigns, course preparation, teaching, letter-writing, lectures, class presentations, policy discussions, article writing, civic or Congressional hearings and citizen action campaigns, etc. For further information on this blog see: About this weblog. and How to use this weblog.
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