Worries Build Among Investors Over Oil and Gas Industry's Exposure to Water and Climate Risks

From:  Truth Out 

Friday, 30 October 2015 00:00 
 By Sharon Kelly, DeSmogBlog | News Analysis 

(Photo: Oil Pollution via Shutterstock)  

When it comes to financial risks surrounding water, there is one industry that, according to a new report, is both among the most exposed to these risks and the least transparent to investors about them: the oil and gas industry.

This year, 1,073 of the world's largest publicly listed companies faced requests from institutional investors concerned about the companies' vulnerability to water-related risks that they disclose their plans for adapting and responding to issues like drought or water shortages.

Many of those companies responded by reporting their information to a group called CDP, which works with over 800 institutional investors with assets of US$95 trillion to push for corporate transparency. But in the oil and gas industry, the compliance rate was just over half the average, with only 22% of companies providing information, CDP reported.

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Worried about toxic chemicals? This band exposes them

From:  USA Today

NEW YORK — It's frightening stuff.

by Edward C. Baig 

During a single week back in August in which I bopped in and around New York City, I was exposed to at least 16 hazardous chemicals. These included phthalate chemicals of the type banned in kids toys and pacifiers, flame retardants such as TCPP and TPP, and Galaxolide, a common fragrance found in cleaning and beauty products.

I'm aware of the sobering details because of a wearable.

While most of us don high tech bands and fitness bracelets to count steps or calories burned, the ordinary looking, waterproof, silicon black band I had on my wrist for those seven days serves a very different purpose. It passively absorbs organic compounds that may be present in the air, water or consumer products around you. In fact, it can currently detect 1,418 chemicals.  MORE

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Will The Crazed Neocons Bring Us Nuclear Winter?

From:  LewRockwell.com

By Paul Craig Roberts

PaulCraigRoberts.org

October 21, 2015

As readers know, I have emphasized that the declared neoconservative intention of achieving global hegemony has resurrected the threat of nuclear armageddon as Russia and China are most definitely not going to submit, as every European country, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Columbia, and Japan have submitted, to being Washington’s vassals.

The president of Russia and the president of China have made this completely clear.

If the arrogance, ignorance and incompetence of the Western political systems permit the continuation of the crazed, totally unrealistic, neoconservative agenda, the planet will die.  MORE

How the State's "Justice" System Cultivates Predators like Ibn Hunter

From:  Pro Libertate

 

By William Norman Grigg

Pro Libertate Blog

On occasion, government-employed police can solve a crime of violence – assuming that the act is captured on video, the offender makes a point of mugging for the camera in close-up, and the clip is disseminated to a large social media audience. Closing the case is even easier when the assailant is a veteran of the criminal “justice” system, and his whereabouts are well-known.

Given all of those advantages, police in Atlantic City were able to arrest Ibn Hunter for punching a homeless 45-year-old woman in an unprovoked attack that left the victim with serious brain trauma. Clearing this case was not beyond the police department’s competence – once others had done the leg work.

In the video, a glassy-eyed Hunter is seen taunting the unnamed victim, who had apparently warned the gibbering predator to stay away from her dog.  MORE