Daily Score Blog

A new international poll finds worldwide agreement that climate change is a threat. Opinions are split, however on the nuts and bolts: in particular, whether to act immediately and whether countermeasures are worth the investment. Even so, a window of opportunity seems to have opened that would allow leaders with bold solutions to spark international cooperation and make real strides.

The poll included 17 countries, representing more than 55 percent of the world population (though not all the questions were asked in each of the countries). Western European countries and Canada* were not included.

While global opinion trends are encouraging, the United States – the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases – has some catching up to do. That is to say, an attitude adjustment is in order:

We’ve already released the results, but they’re worth repeating to remind folks why this matters: We tested breastmilk donated by 40 Cascadian women for PCBs and PBDEs (toxic flame retardants widely used in products such as carpet foam, which are similar to PCBs and also toxic).

The bad news: We found both persisent chemicals in each of the 40 samples, similar to findings from other studies showing rising levels in North America).

Possibly even more disturbing, in about a third of our breastmilk samples from the Pacific Northwest, PBDE levels exceed PCBs.

From the Chemosphere paper: "Clearly, the lower brominated PBDEs are surpassing PCBs as a major environmental concern in North America, and are likely affecting significant portions of the populations in these regions" (let alone salmon, orcas, and other critters).

When you plan your family's annual budget, how much do you allocate for health care expenses? I'll bet you three hundred bucks it's more than that of the entire state of Montana, if Conservative legislators get their way.

In other news, who will keep Portland weird? The Oregonian finds the city's DIY community moving out, and not to Brooklyn or LA. They're heading to places like balmy Bloomington, Indiana, where it's much cheaper to live. (There is a good record label there, it's true.)