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A geologist with the New Brunswick Mines Branch in Bathurst has taken exception to media articles concerning unsafe levels of radon and uranium in the Harvey area ("Radon dangers aren't that dire," Telegraph-Journal, May 26). He dismisses any suggestion that well water potentially contaminated with radon or uranium poses a health threat, yet provides no evidence to support his assertion. He also suggests that mortality rates in the Harvey area aren't any different that any other place in the province, but doesn't provide any data to support this claim.

ExxonMobil has pumped more than $8 million into more than 40 think tanks; media outlets; and consumer, religious, and even civil rights groups that preach skepticism about the oncoming climate catastrophe. Herewith, a representative overview.

Wow, a lot of people must have bought Hummers last week. How else to explain the spike in oil prices? No, I'm not being silly: They are, and by they I mean the gaggle of media pundits and other administration apologists-abetted by some green zealots-who want to explain our energy crisis by reference to profligate consumers.

People unfamiliar with Nevada's vast desert often find it more difficult to see what is there than to imagine what could be superimposed on the seemingly endless landscape. Nuclear waste wedged inside a mountain. Towering mushroom clouds. A network of nuclear missiles covering 10,000 square miles. These days, a very different image is evoked for 10,000 square miles of Nevada desert: a 100-mile-by-100-mile square of solar panels, enough to furnish the entire country with electricity.

A new social media site for "experiments in local living" has been launched called "Live Local" which should be of interest to those of you interested in relocalisation and related ideas like the Transition Towns movement. The site aims to be "a place to share stories and ideas about improving your community", with the user generated ideas and stories being dubbed "experiments". live local is a project which we've developed as a joint social venture with Piers Dawson-Damer. The website is a place to share stories about improving our communities. It makes it easy for local residents to document their experiences and adventures meeting neighbours, discovering neighbourhoods, supporting local economies, saving energy, water and much more. At its heart the project encourages people to take more time to connect and engage with their community. I think its clear the alternative; working crazy hours to earn more money to more buy 'stuff' while leaving us little time to get to know our neighbours and spend time with family and friends, has spectacularly failed. Many of us crave a smarter way of living; one that makes us happier. As part of the launch of the site, they have issued the "live local challenge", which encourages people to "live local" for a week.

"President Barack Obama has vowed the Gulf of Mexico spill would speed the end of US dependence on fossil fuels, but experts doubt reality can match his rhetoric. "The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now," Obama said in a primetime televised address from the Oval Office. Amid the worst environmental disaster in US history, supporters of renewable energy had hoped images of sullied coasts and dramatic engineering failings would spark just such a revolution: the beginning of the end for fossil fuels."

"Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Saturday called for a global fund to fight ecological catastrophes like the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, as he sought to burnish his credentials as a green leader. Admitting that Russia itself was lagging behind other countries in its standards of environmental protection, he also said Russians should feel free to protest against the authorities on environmental issues. Medvedev said that the oil spill from the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico -- the worst in US history -- had showed that the world had been unable to imagine the scale of such catastrophes."

Saul Griffith's game plan, a solution framework for the climate challenge, begins with a 6-step model. Assume changes in CO2 cause climate changes. Choose a temperature where we'd like to set the planet. From temperature, calculate how much carbon we can burn. Figure out what fuels we can burn. Analyze new energy sources. Finally calculate a new, survivable energy mix. His primer on energy units makes his model accessible to all, no matter their level of technical knowledge.

US economic, military and political dominance is likely to decline over the next two decades, according to a new US intelligence report on global trends. The National Intelligence Council (NIC) predicts China, India and Russia will increasingly challenge US influence. It also says the dollar may no longer be the world's major currency, and food and water shortages will fuel conflict.

The residue of millions of tons of coal burning at Kingston Fossil power plant in the Watts Bar Reservoir in Tennessee burst the bounds of the pond in which it was contained, burying as many as 400 acres of land in up to six feet of sludge. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which owns the coal-fired power plant-first operated in 1955-announced that 15 homes were buried and no injuries were reported. A combination of rains and accumulating sludge likely contributed to the disaster-one of two major ash pond collapses in the past decade. All told, about 2.6 million cubic yards of so-called coal ash slurry escaped, the TVA says. The collapsed pond is one of three on the site.

"San Diego doesn't need to import sunshine from the desert," said Weiner, conservation coordinator for the San Diego-based Desert Protective Council. Environmentalists have won some rounds. SDG&E had been pushing to build Sunrise through the heart of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, a recreational jewel beloved by hikers and campers. That 150-mile route appears doomed after recent decisions by an administrative law judge and a utilities commission member. * Map Map Judge Jean Veith wants the commission to reject the Sunrise Powerlink because she has concluded it's too costly, too harmful to the environment and not needed for SDG&E to meet clean-energy mandates.

The gunk on the water had thinned to a gray scrim in front of Mike Thomas' riverfront home -- a small sign of progress one week after one of the worst coal ash spills in American history. But as Thomas drove along the bluff over the Emory River, he pointed to big piles of sludgy, dark gray ash, a byproduct of coal combustion, that had been accidentally disgorged by the nearby electricity plant. The heaps jutted from the water's surface like ugly volcanic islands. By the shore, many neighbors' docks sat in ruins, destroyed by mammoth waves when the ash was released.

A South Carolina environmental cleanup expert says the TVA Kingston steam plant spill will cost millions of dollars and will take many weeks to clean up. "They're going to have to do an extensive cleanup, that's for sure," said David Hitchens, CEO and chemist for AEO Advanced Environmental Options Inc. in Spartanburg, S.C. "It could get into the millions. If you've got 400 acres, and they're going to have to clean it up, and dispose it in a landfill, and the landfills charge $30 to $40 a ton, you're looking at approximately 2 (million) to 2.5 million tons."

Summary: In an article about President-elect Barack Obama's emphasis on alternative energy production in his economic stimulus speech, Reuters quoted criticism of Obama's plan by Thomas Pyle of the Institute for Energy Research. However, the article did not mention the Institute for Energy Research's ties to the oil industry or that Exxon Mobil Corp. has funded the organization.

The Air Car caused a huge stir when we reported last year that Tata Motors would begin producing it in India. Now the little gas-free ride that could is headed Stateside in a big-time way. Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM) confirmed to PopularMechanics.com on Thursday that it expects to produce the world's first air-powered car for the United States by late 2009 or early 2010. As the U.S. licensee for Luxembourg-based MDI, which developed the Air Car as a compression-based alternative to the internal combustion engine, ZPM has attained rights to build the first of several modular plants, which are likely to begin manufacturing in the Northeast and grow for regional production around the country, at a clip of up to 10,000 Air Cars per year.

US Congressman Henry Waxman has unseated John Dingell to become chair of the powerful energy committee of the House of Representatives. Democratic members of Congress voted 137 to 122 for Mr Waxman, 69, to take up the committee chairmanship. Mr Dingell, 82, a representative from Michigan, had been viewed as a strong ally of the US car industry. Mr Waxman, who represents a California district, is a keen proponent of measures to ease global warming.

US lawmakers Tuesday sought to overturn a decades-old ban on offshore drilling voting in favor of a new energy bill which has been spurred by spiralling oil prices. The new bill, which was put forward by the majority Democrats in the House of Representatives, was approved by 236 votes to 189. It would allow drilling off the US coastline up to a distance of between 50 to 100 miles (80 to 160 kilometers) overturning a 1981 federal moratorium.

Water is needed to generate energy. Energy is needed to deliver water. Both resources are limiting the other-and both may be running short. Is there a way out? In June the state of Florida made an unusual announcement: it would sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the corps's plan to reduce water flow from reservoirs in Georgia into the Apalachicola River, which runs through Florida from the Georgia-Alabama border. Florida was concerned that the restricted flow would threaten certain endangered species. Alabama also objected, worried about another species: nuclear power plants, which use enormous quantities of water, usually drawn from rivers and lakes, to cool their big reactors. The reduced flow raised the specter that the Farley Nuclear Plant near Dothan, Ala., would need to shut down.

Hazardous-waste spills and discoveries reported to Colorado authorities nearly doubled over the past decade, from an average of 561 a year from 1998 to 2000 to an average of 1,035 from 2005 to 2007. Population growth, carelessness, and the boom in oil and gas drilling are largely to blame.

Just two months ago, spiking petroleum prices were emboldening confrontational oil exporters such as Venezuela, Russia and Iran, fueling inflation anxiety at the Federal Reserve, raising expectations at American biofuel producers, and crimping the budgets of airlines and ordinary households alike.