WASHINGTON — A Bush administration spending plan that would slash money for the Forest Service could lead to massive layoffs at the agency charged with managing 193 million acres of national forests, Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday. Spending for the Forest Service would be cut by nearly 8 percent next year, to $4.1 billion, in a budget plan submitted by President Bush. The plan could mean the loss of more than 2,700 jobs – nearly 10 percent of the agency’s work force – as well as reductions in dozens of non-fire related programs, from road and trail maintenance to state assistance, land acquisition and recreation, lawmakers said. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., chairman of the House Appropriations Interior subcommittee, called the budget plan ‘an unmitigated disaster’ that ‘would cause real harm to our 193-million acre national forest system.’ The only bright spot in the budget was a request to increase spending to fight wildfires by about $148 million to just under $1 billion, Dicks said. The figure based on the 10-year average of firefighting costs and responds to a frequent complaint by lawmakers that firefighting costs typically exceed the amount budgeted. The Forest Service spent $1.4 billion […]
Facing a torrent of criticism Tuesday, Blue Cross of California abruptly halted its practice of asking physicians in a letter to look for medical conditions that could be used to cancel patients’ insurance coverage. In a statement issued about 6 p.m., the state’s largest for-profit insurer said, ‘Today we reached out to our provider partners and California regulators and determined this letter is no longer necessary and, in fact, was creating a misimpression and causing some members and providers undue concern. ‘As a result, we are discontinuing the dissemination of this letter going forward.’ The announcement came after blistering rebukes Tuesday by physicians, patients, privacy experts and officials including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) after The Times disclosed the practice. The letter had been sharply criticized Monday by the California Medical Assn., and Tuesday night its president, Richard Frankenstein, said: ‘This letter was part of Blue Cross’ pattern of unfairly canceling policies when people need coverage most. We’re relieved that Blue Cross is ending this particular tactic but continue to have serious concerns about this company’s practices looking forward.’ Earlier in the day, Shannon Troughton, a spokeswoman for Blue Cross parent WellPoint […]
SEATTLE — A heart-healthy diet, and even moderate alcohol intake, may help decrease the risk of prostate problems, U.S. research found. The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, found a high-fat diet increased the risk of benign enlargement of the prostate or symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia, known as BPH, by 31 percent and daily consumption of red meat increased the risk of BPH by 38 percent. ‘We don’t really know how it’s working but it’s pretty clear that eating a high amount of fat — and it doesn’t appear to matter what kind fat — increases the risk of BPH,’ study author Alan Kristal of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle said in a statement. Low-fat food is not the only heart smart diet dictum that benefits the prostate, the researchers found. The risk of BPH was reduced 32 percent by eating four or more servings of vegetables daily and 15 percent by making 20 percent of the daily calorie intake lean protein. The study assessed diets, supplement use and alcohol consumption of 4,770 BPH symptom-free men for seven years during which time 876 developed BPH symptoms. The study also found moderate […]
Power dressing’ may soon have a very different and literal meaning. Scientists in the US have developed novel brush-like fibres that generate electrical energy from movement. Weaving them into a material could allow designers to create ‘smart’ clothes which harness body movement to power portable electronic gadgets. Writing in the journal Nature, the team say that the materials could also be used in tents or other structures to harness wind energy. ‘Our goal is to make self-powered nanotechnology,’ Professor Zhong Lin Wang of the Georgia Institute of Technology and one of the authors of the paper told BBC News. ‘Airflows, vibrations – all these are mechanical energy that we can harvest to power devices.’ Dr Dianne Jones, technical director of textile electronics firm Fibretronic, said that as the market for wearable electronics expands, technologies such as the nanofibres would become increasingly attractive. ‘Any new power source which could provide a more integrated and soft solution in place of conventional hard battery technology would be very attractive for clothing or other electronic textile-based applications,’ she said. Ottilia Saxl, chief executive of the Institute of Nanotechnology, believes the technology could also find a use […]
Global Climate Change Response Can Spur $7 Trillion in Clean Energy Investment by 2030: CERA Analysi
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Increasing public concerns about climate change — and its potential economic and political security consequences — are driving public policy and private investment to bring clean energy technologies from the fringes of the global energy industry to the center of activities as quickly as possible, a new analysis by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) has concluded. The result of this rising public and private momentum is an increase in worldwide clean energy investment that could surpass US$7 trillion by 2030 in cumulative real 2007 dollars, according to the CERA report Crossing the Divide: The Future of Clean Energy. ‘We are seeing a major shift in public opinion, reinforced by the expectation that carbon policies could fundamentally change the competitive landscape of the global energy business,’ said Daniel Yergin, CERA Chairman and IHS Executive Vice President. ‘This is providing a vital impetus that is moving clean technology across the great divide of cost, proven results, scale and maturity that has separated it from markets served by mainstream technologies and processes.’ Key Insights ‘The rapidly advancing new paradigms of climate change, energy security, and policy implementation and cooperation among the United States, the European Union, […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
