The fight over a November ballot initiative to suspend California’s
global warming law has escalated sharply with the Koch brothers, oil billionaires and ‘tea party’ backers, making a million-dollar entry into the fray.

The contribution to the campaign for Proposition 23 came Thursday from a subsidiary of Wichita, Kan.-based Koch Industries, the nation’s second-largest private company (after the agribusiness giant Cargill). A spokeswoman for the subsidiary, Flint Hills Resources, said the company ‘may consider additional support.’ The Kochs’ company has estimated annual revenues of $100 billion, owns refineries in Alaska, Texas and Minnesota, and controls about 4,000 miles of oil pipelines.

California’s global warming law, known as AB 32, is designed to cut the state’s emission of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by the end of this decade. A significant chunk of the reductions would come through regulations aimed at fostering alternative fuels and generating electricity from solar, wind and other alternative energy sources.

The ballot measure would suspend the global warming law until the state’s unemployment rate dropped below 5.5%, a level achieved only three times in the last three decades. Until now, the measure has been largely financed by two Texas-based companies, Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp., which operate refineries […]

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If you are an avid follower of health related news, you may have recently read that a new study suggests that use of anti-osteoporosis drugs, known as bisphosphonates, may drastically increase the risk of esophageal cancer, which kills about 15,000 people in the United States each year.

The study was conducted by Dr. Jane Green and colleagues from the University of Oxford’s Cancer Epidemiology Unit and is currently published in the Sept 2010 issue of British Medical Journal.

The researchers found use of oral bisphosphonates was associated with an elevated risk of esophageal cancer after comparing data from about 15,000 patients who were diagnosed with either esophageal, stomach, or colorectal cancer, who were registered in the UK General Practice Research Database, with data from five times as many controls.

Specifically, Dr. Green found patients who were given more than 10 prescriptions or took oral bisphophonates for more than five years were twice as likely as controls to be diagnosed with esophageal cancer. In other words, these drugs could cause esophageal cancer in two out of 1000 patients on the medications.

Bisphosphonates are commonly used to treat osteoporosis and other bone diseases. Food consumer reported earlier that these anti-osteoporosis drugs are also linked with an […]

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On the heels of the latest egg recall, salmonella concerns are at an all-time high. More than 500 million eggs from Iowa’s Hillandale Farms and Wright County Egg have been recalled in the nationwide investigation of a salmonella outbreak. The outbreak has sickened more than 1,000 people.

Consumers have been there, done that. Since 2006, they’ve faced other deadly outbreaks from tainted spinach, peppers, peanuts, pistachios, tomatoes, and salami. This week, Wal-Mart pulled potentially contaminated deli meats from its cases.

Eggs & Salmonella: Get the Facts

Salmonella enteritidis is a common bacterium found inside perfectly normal-looking eggs. If eggs are eaten raw or undercooked, it can cause illness including abdominal cramps, diarrhea, fever, and vomiting within 12-72 hours. Most people recover without treatment, but infants, the elderly, and those with weak immune systems are at risk for serious illness.

When it comes to eggs, tougher rules are finally on the books for the biggest producers. In July, The FDA set in place mandatory inspection of hen houses of more than 50,000 birds. They’re required to test both houses and eggs for salmonella. If it’s found, they must report it and pull eggs from production. Smaller farms have until 2012 to comply.

‘Most producers follow voluntary […]

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To say that the American people are angry is an understatement. The political brain of Americans today reflects a volatile mixture of fear and fury, and when you mix those together, you get an explosion. The only question at this point is how to mitigate the damage when the bomb detonates in November.

The bad news is that it’s too late for Democrats to do what would have been both good policy and good politics (and what the House actually did do), namely to pass a major jobs bill when it was clear that the private sector couldn’t keep Americans employed. The ‘Obama Doctrine’ should have been that Americans who want to work and have the ability to contribute to our productivity as a nation should have the right to work, and that if the private sector can’t meet the demand for jobs, we have plenty of roads and bridges to fix, new energy sources to develop and manufacture, and schools to build and renovate so our kids and workers returning for training can compete in the 21st century global economy. From having spent much of the last four years testing messages on a range of issues, from immigration to taxes […]

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Bjorn Lomborg, the controversial Danish economist, has pushed his way back into the global warming debate with a book that proposes ‘smart solutions’ to climate change. Those promised solutions rely heavily on R&D aimed at making clean energy cheap, rather than attempts to shut down dirty energy sources. Lomborg says his views haven’t changed, but more people are willing to listen to him because international negotiations on limiting greenhouse emissions have accomplished so little.

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

Bjorn Lomborg, a controversial Danish economist, has pushed his way back into the global warming debate. He’s done it with a book promoting what he calls smart solutions to climate change. The book has raised eyebrows because Lomborg – who’s often considered a climate change skeptic – now supports a tax on greenhouse gas emissions.

But as NPR’s Dan Charles reports, Lomborg is still making environmentalists very angry.

DAN CHARLES: Bjorn Lomborg made a big splash almost 10 years ago with a book called ‘The Skeptical Environmentalist.’ He was skeptical, for example, about evidence that humans were warming up the globe. He says those doubts got resolved.

Mr. BJORN LOMBORG (Author): I’ve said for many years: Global warming is real. It’s man-made, and it is an important problem.

CHARLES: […]

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