Environmental News Wrap: Foot-dragging Regulation; The Clean Coal Myth; BP Spill News, and More…

GlobalWarmingisReal contributor Anders Hellum-Alexander wraps-up the climate and environmental news headlines for the past week:

• New Mexico’s new governor has used an uncommon political move to stop increased environmental regulation. The two regulations targeted would have made dairy waste disposal more environmental and would have decreased overall green house gas emissions by 3 percent annually.
• England’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, has dedicated his government to be the most Green Government, ever. The Guardian tries to measure “Greenness” and covers actions taken so far.
• A new film attacks what it calls the “myth of clean coal.”
• Drinking water in the US is still not completely drinkable. The popular contaminate today is hexavalent chromium, made popular by the movie Erin Brokavich. The movie where all the people got sick and died.

The BP Gulf Oil spill still continues (two recent items in the news)…

1. Some think that much of the methane released during the spill was eaten by microbes, but there are some evidence gaps.
2. The National Oil Spill Comission is releasing a report on 1/11/11 that points a giant finger at all parties involved in the BP spill. The companies just focused on profit and let safety precautions fall by the wayside, like any good profit maximizing mega-corporation.

• ChristianScience Monitor provides a depressing slide show of environmental destruction all over the world. This issue is very real, even though most of us sit in our comfortable, clean homes every night and never give it a thought.
• The Economist reports on dust. Dust is yet another part of the global ecosystem that most of us do not know about or think about.
• The Environmental Protection Agency is always under attack from business interests and conservatives. Now some federal Congressmen are encouraging the support of the EPA so it can continue to protect human health in the US.