Socioecology Research Today

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released for public comment draft risk assessments of five chemicals found in common household products.These include: dichloromethane (DCM) and methyl pyrrolidone (or N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone, abbreviated to NMP) in paint stripper products; trichloroethene (TCE) in spray-on protective coatings or when used as a degreaser; antimony trioxide (ATO) when used with [...]

Brazil, India, the US, China and the EU point the way towards a 60 billion gallon biofuels market by 2022 – but can the capacity be built, and can the mandates survive pressure from opponents?

What influences countries’ environmental performance? Do structural differences alone affect the level of air pollution? Do economic conditions determine water quality? Might society’s dominant ideology and values impact national environmental performance? Are different kinds of environmental-performance indicators affected by the same variables? This paper employs comparative empirical analyses of EPI data to address these questions. [...]

The 2008 assessment or EIS stated that the project would be “socially acceptable, environmentally responsible, technologically achievable and economically viable”.But the review of that EIS, written by John Luick, a physical oceanographer at the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), finds it contained “serious omissions and flaws”. In particular, these relate to data provided [...]

Every year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) spends about $40 million to put independent observers on fishing vessels, where they collect data on what’s caught in U.S. waters. The information is crucial for evaluating how well fishery management plans are working. Now NOAA wants to limit public access to these data in order [...]

The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, passed in April to prevent insider trading by members of Congress and their staff, includes a provision that requires public posting of financial disclosures. The rule applies not only to Congress but to about 28,000 senior federal employees who file certain disclosure forms. Right now those forms [...]

Instead of blocking an import, however, this fight is over whether to allow a growing surplus of coal to be exported to Asia, a decision that would throw miners a lifeline by effectively offshoring carbon emissions and potentially give China access to cheaper coal.Having long ago lost their bid to prevent the extraction of fossil [...]

To judge from India’s official surveys, the protection of its forests is a success. Somehow, this resource-hungry country of 1.2 billion people is managing to preserve its rich forests almost intact in the face of growing demands for timber and agricultural land.But a senior official responsible for assessing the health of the nation’s forests says [...]

A review of fishing regulations indicates that immature queen conch are being harvested legally in most Caribbean nations, providing at least a partial explanation for widespread depletion. While relationships between shell lip thickness, age, and maturity vary geographically, sustainable management of queen conch will require a minimum shell lip thickness for harvest no less than [...]

The U.S. EPA is requesting public comments on the renewable fuel standard (RFS) waiver requests that were filed by Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe and North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue in mid-August.EPA Assistant Administrator Gina McCarthy signed the public comment notice on August 20. The EPA then submitted the notice to the Federal Register for publication. [...]