Uncategorized
Creek Memories & Our Fight For Clean Water in America
From early morning tadpole pursuits to sunset creek walks, my summer days started and ended in the creek that ran behind my home. My dad built a bridge across the creek, but for our neighborhood gang of rascals, well, there was no use for such bridges when we could splash and wade right through that…
Read MoreNew Jersey Rally Protests Dirty Energy Power Lines
There was more than the usual lurking going on Thursday afternoon in Lurker Park in East Hanover, New Jersey. More than 50 people turned out to protest the Obama administration’s fast-tracking of a proposed electrical power line that would bring coal-fired power to New Jersey. The protesters say we should be using less, not more, coal-fired…
Read MoreFriday Finds: Tax Evasion Exxon Style
Energy companies dodge taxes while getting rich off subsidies Most people try to pay as little in taxes as possible, but energy companies like Exxon Mobil and PG&E have taken tax dodging to the extreme by actually making money off taxpayers while paying zero dollars in taxes, reports ThinkProgress. According to an analysis by the…
Read MoreSure, Inhaling Mercury Is Fine for Your Health
As part of the Poisoned Places: Toxic Air, Neglected Communities series, NPR investigated the toxic air pollution being pumped out of the Ash Grove cement plant in Chanute, Kansas, a town of roughly 9,000 people. The Ash Grove facility, which emits some 500 pounds of mercury a year when operating full blast, is not violating…
Read MoreOccupy the Earth
It’s not every day that you see a “stop police brutality” sign coupled with signs about protecting the environment, but that was the scene I came upon last week while attending an Occupy Oakland. If you’ve been paying any attention to the Occupy Wall Street movement that now spans100 U.S. cities, you know that many…
Read More"How Wall Street Occupied America"
“Wall Street owns the country…. Money rules…. Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us.” So sayeth the pupulist firebrand Mary Elizabeth Lease in 1890. “She should see us now,” comments Bill Moyers in…
Read MoreDelta Smelt Get Life From Supreme Court
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed conservationists a victory and some good news for endangered wildlife. The court denied a request by an anti-wildlife right-wing group to strip federal Endangered Species Act protections from a rare species – a California fish called the delta smelt. The right-wing Pacific Legal Foundation, has tried repeatedly to…
Read MoreFriday Finds: The Phantom Dust Menace
Republican dust up over phantom environmental regulation Conservative Republicans are so intent on eliminating “unnecessary” environmental regulations that they recently set their sights on eliminating a rule that doesn’t even exist, reports the Washington Post. The so-called “dust rule” regulates farm dust, which is mixed with things like dirt and dried cornstalk bits and is technically…
Read MoreThey Took Our Jobs! (Not)
Today, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)—that’s “Ice-uh” for those unfamiliar with the congressman—ran a hearing in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about pollution from coal-fired power plants. The hearing unfolded roughly as expected, with one side—repped by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli—arguing that clean air standards are job-killers, and the other side—repped by Environmental…
Read MoreTr-Ash Talk: Yet Another Coal Ash Spill
We’re closing in on the 3-year anniversary of the TVA coal ash disaster and there are still no federal regulations in place protecting us from coal ash. And now, another spill: in Oak Creek, Wisconsin a bluff collapsed, sending coal ash and debris from We Energies Oak Creek Power Plant into Lake Michigan. Writing this…
Read More