Green River Butte.

Thanks to a recent federal court decision, visitors to Utah’s public wild lands can continue to raft the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument without seeing oil derricks around the river’s bends.

They can continue to enjoy the outlook from Canyonlands National Park’s Grand View Point without drill rigs littering the landscape.

And they won’t be forced to see the formations at Arches National Park as gateways to increased carbon emissions and environmental disruption.

Note from Lisa Evans: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) last week released the "Coal Blooded Action Toolkit," which is a companion to its report, Coal Blooded: Putting Profits Before People, published jointly by the NAACP and Little Village Environmental Justice Organization and the Indigenous Environmental Network last November.

The 2012 report found low-income communities and communities of color are more likely to suffer the damaging effects caused by coal plant operations, including the disposal of toxic coal ash. Expressly designed for grassroots communities, the Coal Blooded Action Toolkit is a step-by-step guide on how to take action to address pollution from coal fired power plants, covering investigation, raising community awareness, litigation, direct action and much more. It is essential reading for those who care about protecting communities from toxic pollution and defending civil and human rights violated by the burning of coal.

The following Tr-Ash Talk guest post is written by Angela Garrone, Southeast Energy Research Attorney for the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy:

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in conjunction with Little Village Environmental Justice Organization and the Indigenous Environmental Network, released a report analyzing sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in conjunction with demographic factors, including race, income and population density. The report, entitled “Coal Blooded: Putting Profits Before People,” demonstrates the urgent need for community action focused on shutting down coal plants located in low-income communities and communities of color.

North Atlantic right whale (#1612) with calf. (NOAA)

Would you build a $127 million training facility without first deciding whether to use it? That’s what the U.S. Navy claims it is doing in the waters off Jacksonville, Florida.

The Navy is pushing ahead with plans to build a massive submarine warfare training facility, consisting of 500 square miles of cables, nodes, buoys and other instruments, next to the only known nursery for the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale and on top of habitat for sea turtles and other endangered species.

Less than 300 wolverines are thought to remain in the lower 48. (USDA)

Last Friday, the federal government proposed to protect wolverines as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Wolverines are the biggest member of the weasel, mink, marten and otter family, but they don’t act like good family members—they are loners who cover huge ranges usually high in mountain ranges above tree line up in the rock, ice and snow.

No one knows how many wolverines still exist in the 48 contiguous states but their number is estimated to be less than 300, most living high in the Rocky Mountains of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho and the North Cascades of Washington. A few individual wolverines are scattered through California, Oregon and Colorado.

Reducing black carbon emissions will slow climate change now.
Chukchi Sea, Alaska. (Florian Schulz / visionsofthewild.com)

As the environmental ministers of the Arctic nations, including the United States, meet in Sweden next week, they have an opportunity to show leadership on an important though less well-known climate pollutant, black carbon (soot).

While carbon dioxide remains the most important, long-lasting pollutant forcing climate change, recent studies have revealed that short-lived climate forcers like black carbon are equally damaging, especially in the Arctic.

Mississippi River at Vicksburg closed after barge hit railroad bridge and began leaking oil. (Photo: WLBT)

Utility giant FirstEnergy Corp unveiled plans last week to barge 3 million tons of coal ash annually nearly 100 miles on the Monongahela and Ohio rivers for disposal in an unlined pit in LaBelle, PA. The ash comes from its Bruce Mansfield Power Station—one of the largest coal burning power plants in the U.S.

There's not a thing right about this scheme, according to residents who take their drinking water from the river. Also unhappy are citizens of LaBelle, PA, whose water and air are already poisoned by nearly 15 years of coal ash dumping.

There’s a dangerous type of mouse and rat poison on the market that when eaten by the rodents, causes them to bleed to death internally. Problems arise when the poison sometimes finds its way into the hands of kids or pets or moves up the food chain from rats and mice to foxes, bobcats, owls and the like that pounce on sickly rodents.

Earthjustice attorney Greg Loarie sent a letter to the State of California’s Department of Pesticide Regulation in December asking the state to order the stuff off the market. The state has yet to respond but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now says it will start the process to ban forms of the poison used in the home that lack tamper-resistant packaging. While EPA is taking a significant step in the right direction, more needs to be done to protect children and wildlife.

Solar panel installation in Hawaiʻi.

Clean energy future—you hear the term a lot these days. Can we really get there? The answer is coming into focus in several places in the U.S. and it’s a resounding yes!

Hawaiʻi is charging ahead with rooftop solar energy systems. Just this week we are getting word that a major obstacle to more rooftop installation there has been resolved. Earthjustice attorney Isaac Moriwake emerged after months of behind-the-scenes negotiations to announce a deal whereby Hawaiʻi’s main electric utility company, known as HECO, will devote resources over the next two years to smooth the way for more rooftop solar.

Crops shriveled to dust this summer while thermometers hit continuous triple digits in the Midwest and Southwest regions. Yet, what about the current “snowmageddon” occurring in our mountain regions, and record lows on the east coast?

Global warming is the all-encompassing term for what is happening to our planet today. As we increase the amount of anthropogenic pollutants in the air, we trap heat within our atmosphere. Yet, this seems contradictory if the weather channel reports on freezing temperatures and cold fronts nationwide.

What defines global warming is climate, not weather. Weather is what we see on a 10-day forecast, what dictates the clothes we wear, and if our flight will be delayed. Climate, on the other hand, is a compilation of weather over a minimum time span of 30 years. This provides a baseline to compare historical climate patterns, and gives an overall picture of what the weather has been doing for three or more decades.

The City of Bath. (Photo courtesy of Daz Smith, Flickr)

Fracking may ruin spa time in UK’s historic City of Bath
People have taken part in the restorative waters in the city of Bath for thousands of years, but this centuries-old tradition may no longer be available if fracking companies are allowed to drill near the Mendip Hills, where the Bath water originates, reports the UK Express. Members of the Bath community are concerned that, if allowed, hydraulic fracturing or fracking, which involves drilling deep into the ground using a mixture of water, sand and chemicals to force gas to the surface, may contaminate the area’s pristine waters, or at the very least ruin the pristine image of the city. Up until now, the controversial drilling practice was banned by the government after it was linked to two earthquakes in Lancashire, a popular seaside resort in Britain. But recently government officials were enticed to lift the ban, most likely because fracking offers a new revenue stream that might boost the weak economy. Unfortunately for the fracking industry, the British are just as freaked out by fracking as many Americans, perhaps even more so because the UK lacks the wide-open spaces where U.S.-based fracking operations often take place. Of course, now that fracking is beginning to show its ugly head in iconic, popular tourist attractions like Cooperstown, NY, Americans and Britons now have one more thing in common besides the English language and our love of pubs.