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In Florida, Green Is Toxic
As I write this, a new toxic algae bloom has broken out on southwest Florida’s Caloosahatchee River, filling the air with a sickening stench. We are so infuriated at seeing this heartbreaking pollution disaster wreck our beautiful Florida so early in the toxic algae season. As you’ve read in this blog before, these outbreaks of…
Read MoreLloyd’s Urges Caution In The Arctic
The Obama administration is all ears—deaf ones—when it comes to dire warnings about drilling in the Arctic made by scientists, policymakers, international figures and celebrities. The latest caution came today from the world’s largest and oldest insurance market, Lloyd’s of London, which warned that offshore drilling in the Arctic would “constitute a unique and hard-to-manage…
Read MoreSnatching Skagit River Water Is In The Public Interest?
Washington state’s Swinomish tribe faces a water rights battle in the Skagit River basin, the likes of which we have seen before. It’s reminiscent of the dispute that broke out around a decade ago in the Klamath River basin in California and Oregon. That dispute led to a fish kill of about 70,000 salmon after…
Read MoreLittle Fish Are a Big Deal
Over the last 100 years the industrial fishing fleet has become very good at strip-mining the ocean of forage fish
Read MoreFriday Finds: Maple Syrup Mayhem
Climate change ruins breakfast for everyone This year’s early arrival of spring is devastating maple production, which generate the most sap when freezing nights follow cool days, reports the Washington Post. Typically a month-long season, maple syrup producers who rely on traditional taps and buckets saw their maple season cut dramatically this year, which means…
Read MoreTwice Rejected, Developer Again Tries To Seize Water
How many times does Aaron Million need to hear the word, no? The president of Wyco development corporation has twice been rejected by federal agencies in his attempt to build Flaming Gorge Pipeline—a massive trans-basin water supply project that would annually take approximately 81 billion gallons of water from the Flaming Gorge Reservoir and the…
Read MoreLove Matt Damon? Hate Fracking? This Film's For You!
I’m not going to even try to hide my excitement at the news that Matt Damon co-wrote and is starring in a feature film, titled Promised Land, about the controversial gas development technique known as fracking. The actor has made his concerns known about fracking’s link to water pollution in this two-minute spot by Working…
Read MoreTr-Ash Talk: It’s About Time
Today, 3 years after the largest toxic waste spill in U.S. history, 11 environmental and public health groups will file a lawsuit to force the Environmental Protection Agency to complete its rulemaking and finalize public health safeguards against coal ash pollution. The EPA has delayed federal protection for decades despite overwhelming evidence that carcinogenic, neurotoxic, mutagenic…
Read MoreTr-Ash Talk: Alaska Leaders Bury Their Heads In Coal Ash
(Russ Maddox is an Alaska Chapter Sierra Club volunteer.) As the rest of the nation wakes up and begins to realize how damaging wanton handling and disposal of coal ash truly is, regulators and leaders in Alaska continue to keep their heads buried in the sand, or in this case, coal ash. The forests of…
Read MoreFriday Finds: It’s (Almost) End of the World As We Know It
Climate scientists warn that Earth’s tipping points are at the tipping point Recently, climate scientists announced that this is the last decade to cut carbon emissions significantly or there’s no going back on global warming, reports Reuters. And they’re not just talking about freak heat waves and threats to Cherry Blossom festivals. Though estimates differ,…
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