What the muck?: A California businessman who promised a Canadian First Nations tribe that he could "enhance" their salmon fishery by increasing the supply of edible plankton did so by dumping 100 tons of iron ore into the ocean off the coast of British Columbia, creating a 3,800-square-mile algae bloom. For this he charged the tribe only $1 million. (Such a deal!) The businessman's company is dedicated to pursuing the geoengineering notion -- viewed skeptically by most scientists and environmentalists -- that giant algae blooms will act as massive carbon sinks and reduce global warming. Says one conservationist of the dump: "This does not appear to even have had the guise of legitimate scientific research." Oh, snap, conservationist! NBC News
Meating out justice, Harper-style: The largest red-meat recall in Canadian history is over after 15 people were poisoned with E. coli traced to a processing plant owned by XL Foods, which was discovered to have violated a number of sanitary regulations during an investigation. So how will the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper punish these rule-breakers who recklessly gambled with people's lives? By shrugging the whole thing off, apparently, and wishing them well as they get back to business as usual. "By all appearances, there will be no fines, no sanctions, no extra scrutiny, no public inquiry." Sorry for your three-week meat delay, everybody! Undercooked cheeseburgers are on the house! Globe and Mail
The story you didn't see: A new report has come out that rebuts assertions made by Stanford researchers who concluded that organically grown food wasn't more nutritious, didn't contain more vitamins, and didn't help fight diseases like cancer any better than conventionally grown food. Except, wait! It isn't a "new" report! It's actually only slightly older than the Stanford report. It's from 2011; it emerged out of Newcastle University in the U.K.; it came to almost exactly the opposite set of conclusions than the Stanford report did; and absolutely nobody talked about it when it came out, because if you're an editor looking for the OMG-shocking-supersexy news angle, you're like, "Some scientists in England say organic food is good for you? Really? Thanks g'night zzzzzz." New York Times
Coming around: A poll released on Monday by the Pew Research Center shows that 67 percent of Americans believe "there is solid evidence of global warming" -- representing a four-point gain over 2011 figures and a 10-point gain over 2010 figures. The increase cuts across political lines; belief in the phenomenon is up among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. So: good news, right? Except that the figure was at 77 percent five years ago. Were you to graph the trajectory of opinion, the whole thing would look kind of like ... well ... kind of like a hockey stick, we guess. The Hill
A clean fight: "An array of gas, trucking and farming industry interests" has challenged California's regulations on greenhouse gas emissions related to transportation fuels, claiming that "by favoring gas, diesel and ethanol producers who use cleaner production methods" the law "violates the federal commerce clause, discriminating against producers in the Midwest and elsewhere by illegally favoring California industries." The normally environmentally-friendly 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appears to be intrigued, with one justice wondering aloud if the law doesn't display "unambiguous evidence ... of protectionism." (Special appellate-ladder-related punch line, for environmental lawyers only: "Good thing it's in the 9th Circuit, which means any ruling is bound to get overturned by the Supremes!" Ba-dum-bum.) San Jose Mercury News
Disappearing acts: A study being published today by Great Britain's Royal Society explores the ways that climate change affects species -- with a special emphasis on the role it plays in species extinction. Among their findings: "Reduced food availability led to the local extinction of three birds -- a plover, a jay, and an auklet; a spreading deadly fungus killed off multiple species of tropical frog; drought killed off a local type of aloe tree and four amphibians; and lower oxygen availability in warmer waters killed off a fish." (Wait, that fish wasn't a salmon, was it? Off the coast of British Columbia?) Business Insider
When bureaucracies collide: So today's the deadline for the Environmental Protection Agency to submit legal arguments in the agency's appeal of a decision overturning its veto of a permit that would allow for a massive mountaintop-removal mining project in West Virginia. The permit, granted in 2007 to a subsidiary of Arch Coal by the Army Corps of Engineers, was vetoed by the EPA after that agency determined that the project would endanger wildlife and water quality. But in March, a U.S. district judge said the EPA couldn't just, you know, stone-cold veto a permit issued by the Corps. Hoo-wee! We smell us an old-fashioned, interagency rumble over the improper arrogation of regulatory authority a-brewin'! Nature
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