Well, it’s been an interesting week for women’s health issues: earlier this week Giulia noted that a panel is recommending fewer mammograms and starting later, and now, new guidelines are suggesting that women start getting screened for cervical cancer later in life, and that Pap smears are not needed every year.

One of the reasons for the change is that overtesting can actually lead to very serious risks. Says Reuters:

The recommendations are based on scientific evidence that suggests more frequent testing leads to overtreatment, which can harm a young woman’s chances of carrying a child full term.

“Overtreatment of minor abnormal pap tests in young women and adolescents can lead to consequences such as preterm labor in some cases. It increases the risk,” said Dr. Thomas Herzog of Columbia University in New York, who is chairman of an ACOG [American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists] subcommittee on gynecologic cancers.

So now, women, you’re supposed to start getting Pap smears at 21, and every two years. Read the rest of this entry >>

Here’s a fun fact: televisions and their related accoutrement (cable boxes, DVD players, and the like) account for 2 percent of all energy use in the state of California.

Now, while the “fun-ness” of that may be debatable, the veracity is certainly not. Indeed, Californians buy over 4 million televisions every year, and as technology gets better and better, these TVs are getting bigger and bigger with crazy liquid crystals and plasma and all sorts of things you don’t really need to get the full experience of reality television. Anyway, the point: in California, like everywhere else, televisions are burning through a lot of electricity, causing a lot of pollution.

California, however, is doing something about it, and is becoming the first state to impose efficiency standards on large flat-screen TVs. The New York Times reports that the standards, which will come into effect in 2011, will apply to televisions 58 inches or larger. Read the rest of this entry >>

Well, we kinda knew this day was coming, but it’s sad to report nonetheless: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced that said Senate will not tackle the climate change bill until next Spring, in 2010. Which, to spell it out, means absolutely definitely no deal in the United States before the Copenhagen Conference next month.

AFP (via TerraDaily) notes that the failure to act means not only that Copenhagen is in trouble. The bill itself may have more problems now.

It also pushes what is likely to be a bitter debate to a mid-term election year, potentially making it harder to corral some of the swing-vote Senators needed to ensure passage of the bill.

Yes, now the bill may become watered down in order to pass muster with those Senators that don’t want to rile their constituents. This is what happens when you can’t elect people for life. Read the rest of this entry >>

It’s amazing to realize that Hurricane Katrina was four years ago, and even more amazing to realize how devastated some of New Orleans still is this long after the disaster. Yet Friend of the Show EA Hanks just visited the Lower Ninth Ward, and shot video with Jonah Evans, who is heavily involved with saving Charity Hospital. Check out the footage. I don’t even have words to describe it.

The Lower Ninth Ward 4 Years Later (EA Hanks & Jonah Evans) from EA Hanks on Vimeo.

After the jump, another video from Hanks and Evans, in which they explain why we need to save Charity Hospital. Read the rest of this entry >>

It was only a week and change ago that United States climate change envoy Todd Sterns told Congress that a binding agreement on climate change “doesn’t look like it’s on the cards for December” at the Copenhagen Conference. And that was pretty, well, disheartening. But this weekend, the fact that a binding agreement in Copenhagen is dead on arrival came straight from the man in charge, President Obama. From a New York Times article about how Congress has derailed the entire world on this one:

[T]his weekend in Singapore, Mr. Obama was forced to acknowledge that a comprehensive climate deal was beyond reach this year. Instead, he and other world leaders agreed that they would work toward a more modest interim agreement with a promise to renew work toward a binding treaty next year.

Again, this all (infuriatingly) stems from Congress not passing a climate change bill quickly enough, which in turn ties our negotiators’ hands, which makes every other country wary of an agreement we’re not a part of. Go team! However, Obama and other world leaders are still trying to make it so that Copenhagen is the first strong step in what will become a two-part deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol. Read the rest of this entry >>

Stavros Dimas

Back when the Kyoto Protocol was signed, there were 15 member nations of the European Union, and this EU 15 (as they are known on the street) had agreed in said protocol to cut emissions by 8 percent from 1990 levels in the measurement period of 2008-2012, when the Protocol expires. Makes sense? Good. Well, how are the EU 15 doing on their pledge? Reuters says that, overall, not too shabby.

The 15 EU countries…are on track to cut emissions to 6.9 percent below 1990 by the 2008-2012 measurement period, short of their 8 percent goal, but offsetting will take them to a cut of around 9 percent…Further measures such as reforestation programs will take them to around 13 percent.

So while emissions themselves are still a little higher than hoped, offsets combined with more importantly (in my mind, at least) reforestation are actually boosting the EU 15 far above the Kyoto targets. Read the rest of this entry >>

We had noted a while back here at TakePart that the beautiful and iconic Joshua Trees in the eponymous National Park are rapidly dying out thanks to global warming, but that wasn’t the only threat to the Park and its gorgeous environs. Luckily, at least one bullet has been dodged, as a federal appeals court has upheld a ruling that stopped construction on what would have been one of the nation’s largest landfills.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (the one the Republicans think have the activist judges) has upheld a 2005 ruling that prevented an abandoned iron ore mine from being converted into the Eagle Mountain Landfill. And why, you might ask, would this landfill maybe not be a good idea? Read the rest of this entry >>

Today is Veterans Day, originally Armistice Day, marking the end of World War I, which came to a close on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year in 1918.

The Department of Veterans Affairs tells us that President Wilson first marked the anniversary in 1919, when the President said:

To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…

Read the rest of this entry >>

As we attempt to pass a climate change bill (we = Congress on this one), it seems like the Republican party can’t get enough nuclear power in the legislation. In fact, The New Republic (TNR) reports that when it comes to alternative energy, some lawmakers on the right feel that nuclear power is the only way to go. The Republican energy plan, for example, calls for 100 new reactors built by 2030, a figure TNR states is “twice as many as even the most optimistic industry forecasts envision.” Yes, we’re not entirely sure why, but Republicans see nuclear as the magic bullet.

And now, there are more and more signals that the Democratic leaders are willing to cede ground on the nuclear issue. Read the rest of this entry >>

If you’re like some of us over here at TakePart, you can’t get enough coverage of the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. We even cover a lot of the news ourselves here. And that’s why it’s so exciting that over at The Daily Climate (TDC), today they are starting a four-part special report called “The Consequences of Copenhagen.”

Written by TCD editor Douglas Fischer, every day from now through Friday the special will cover a different aspect of the Conference. Today, for example, concerns what is at stake in next month’s meetings. Fischer writes: Read the rest of this entry >>