Born To Be Wild Once More

One of the newborn bison calves, born at Montana's Fort Peck in the spring of 2012.

Home on the range, where the deer and antelope play? Forget about it. How about buffalo (yeah, I know they’re really bison). After years of dreaming about getting one of the original Americans back out on the prairie where they belong, we’re a big step closer to seeing it happen. After killing every last buffalo…

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Tr-Ash Talk: Living With Lies and Coal Ash

It’s inspiring to see the commitment of Rep McKinley’s constituents living in the shadow of First Energy’s behemoth 1000-acre Little Blue Run waste dump continuing to speak the truth amid the lies flaunted by corporate interests. Steve and Annette Rhodes, life-long residents of West Virginia, describe the stark and unfortunate reality of living near a toxic coal ash dump and debunk the many falsehoods spouted by Rep. McKinley in their recent piece in The Hill, Rep McKinley We Live Here with the Coal Ash.

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1 Million Voices: Protect Our Arctic Ocean

On a muggy summer Tuesday morning, polar bears, a walrus, a sandpiper and 150 activists delivered to White House more than one million comments from concerned members of the public—all asking President Obama to stop plans by Shell Oil to drill in the remote, fragile waters of the Arctic Ocean.

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Friday Finds: Flame Retardant Flameout

Investigation sets flame to chemical retardant claims Flame retardants have long been heralded as life-saving chemicals that slow fires, but a recent investigative series by the Chicago Tribune has found that the toxic chemicals, which are found in American babies at the highest recorded levels among infants in the world, both may not be safe…

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Tr-Ash Talk: Clean Up Your Coal Ash!

The Progress Energy plant in Asheville, NC operates two of the nation’s tallest high-hazard coal-ash ponds. “High-hazard” means that if either of the pond’s decades-old earthen dams were to break, loss of life would be likely. In Asheville, such a break would completely swamp the French Broad River and Interstate 26. Absent a dam break,…

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Looking Forward To The Long Summer Daze

“School’s out for summer!” When I was growing up, Alice Cooper’s 1972 hit usually infiltrated my head sometime around the beginning of May, looped incessantly, and hit a feverish crescendo in the few minutes before the final bell released us to summer break. Now, many years later, a very different line completes the couplet in…

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When Paint Chips are Not the Only Danger

We all know the danger that resides in lead-laden paint chips peeling off the walls of old homes. It’s well understood that lead is poisonous and, even in small doses, can harm brain function and cause learning disabilities in children. Lead also is associated with impairment of the cardiovascular, reproductive, kidney and immune systems of…

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Judge: Salmon-killing Dams Should Go

In a video interview, federal judge James A. Redden said four dams on the lower Snake River should go. As he explained, it’s easier to take the dams out than it was to put them in and the change is needed for salmon to survive.

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Coal — The Earth's Food Poisoning

When you’ve got food poisoning, what’s the last thing on earth you want? A heaping plate of the offending dish, right? Well—new, dirty coal plants are to the planet what shrimp scampi is to a roiling belly. Industrial carbon pollution from coal plants is making us sick, driving climate change, and intensifying the smog-filled air…

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