TV News LIES

Risk analysts have concluded that the disposal of contaminated wastewater from hydraulic fracturing (or "fracking") wells producing natural gas in the intensively developed Marcellus Shale region poses a substantial potential risk of river and other water pollution.

That conclusion, the analysts say, calls for regulators and others to consider additional mandatory steps to reduce the potential of drinking water contamination from salts and naturally occurring radioactive materials, such as uranium, radium and radon from the rapidly expanding fracking industry.

Thousands of fish are dying in the Midwest as the hot, dry summer dries up rivers and causes water temperatures to climb in some spots to nearly 100 degrees.

Biologists in Illinois said the hot weather has killed tens of thousands of large- and smallmouth bass and channel catfish and is threatening the population of the greater redhorse fish, a state-endangered species.

Jane Kleeb is a savvy activist who, Nebraska’s Republican governor once said, “has a tendency to shoot her mouth off most days.” A Florida native who moved to Nebraska in 2007 after marrying a rancher active in Democratic politics, she did as much as anyone to bring the massive Keystone XL crude oil pipeline to a halt last year.

James Goecke is a counterpoint to Kleeb. A hydrogeologist and professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, he has been measuring water tables in Nebraska’s ecologically sensitive Sand Hills region since 1970 and has shunned the political limelight — until now. He recently appeared in an ad for the pipeline’s owner, TransCanada, rebutting some of the arguments against the project and its new route.

Twenty-four summers ago, NASA scientist James Hansen first warned the world about what he called the dangers of global warming. In front of a Senate panel, he said he was "99% certain" that a recent warming trend was not a natural variation but caused by a buildup of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels.

Now, a study released this weekend by Hansen, the dean of climate scientists, concludes that the recent heat waves and extreme summers likely were caused by climate change.

Butterfly populations are an important gauge of the health of local habitats and wider climate change. As families this weekend join the Big Butterfly Count, Faye Dobson explains what population changes mean, and how you can get involved.

According to a report by the Dorset-based charity Butterfly Conservation, 72 per cent of butterfly and moth species have declined in the last ten years, and 54 per cent have decreased in the UK. Even the abundance of common garden butterflies, such as the Red Admiral, has dropped by 24 per cent.

Thousands of protesters from all over the country gathered in Washington, D.C. to "Stop the Frack Attack" by natural gas companies that are destroying our air, our drinking water and our health.

NOT A SINGLE WORD APPEARED IN ANY CORPORATE  MEDIA OUTLET, either in print or on television about this important rally.

CALL me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.

The United States is now well on its way to a renewables-crushing, decades-long shale-gas bridge with an economic commitment to exporting this non-renewable domestic fuel and, absent dramatic market changes, there’s not much Congressman Markey or anyone else can do to stop it.

Given that this gas rush has been lent credibility by some sectors of academia, it is good that you bring up the topic of potential conflicts of interest in academia related to the issues surrounding shale gas.