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Meet The Power Plants
Imagine you live in a neighborhood full of families. There are many nice people, but a few households are real menaces. They’re loud, they burn things in the backyard, and they drive around so fast that you’re worried they’re going to run someone down The neighborhood bands together and one-by-one succeeds in getting these menaces…
Read MoreWhich Page of the Times Do You Read?
Last Sunday, Dec. 4, the weekly review/opinion section of The New York Times carried a sober and sobering piece by Robert Semple, a Times editorial writer who seldom gets to sign his pieces. He wrote of the climate meetings taking place this week in Durban, South Africa, where no one seems to think much progress will…
Read MoreBirth Defects Linked to Mountaintop Removal
Climate change skeptics, industries in denial, regulators avoiding environmental cleanup… They all sound alike when it comes to evidence of environmental harm. They argue there isn’t enough data. They insist the data is skewed. They see no reason to take action on some of the most obvious negative impacts of industrial activity. Let’s take a…
Read MoreFriday Finds: Big Coal’s Big Sugar Daddies
Report finds allegedly “green” banks finance dirty coal A recent investigation by a group of non-governmental organizations found that a number of supposedly “green” banks fall into the top 20 institutions to finance coal-mining and coal-fired energy generation, reports the UK Guardian. Taking the first three places is JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of…
Read MoreAussie Energy Co. Buys Into U.S. Coal Mines
“This is a good company from Australia who is well funded, well banked, and they have bought a mine in Montana and have every intention to ship it to Asia. It’s a great story.” – Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer Yes, governor, it’s a great story. It’s a story of air pollution, global warming and ruined…
Read MoreAir Watch
Tom Frantz grew up in California’s central valley. The once sparse rural area is now the source of food for millions of Americans, and throughout his life Tom has seen the bucolic pastures of his childhood transform into modern-day mega-farms. When Tom’s daughter was 10 she started to develop migraines. Then Tom started having breathing…
Read MoreSurvivor: The Sea Turtle Edition
It’s not every day that a wild animal gets a lucky break, but a few months back that’s exactly what happened to Karsten, a peaceful loggerhead sea turtle that was released off of Sombrero Beach in the Florida Keys after months of rehabilitation. Karsten was found back in May with a fishhook in his jaw…
Read MoreStepping Out of the Shadows
What’s it like to live in the shadow of a smokestack? Ask Kim Wasserman, executive director of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) and a resident of Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood—a culturally vibrant area on the city’s west side that many, including Wasserman, refer to as the “Mexican capital of the Midwest.” Wasserman and…
Read MoreBig Air Announcement Coming in December
Mark your calendars. Dec. 16 is going to be a big deal—particularly for families with children across the country. I know that Alvin, Simon and Theodore are getting Chipwrecked that day, but that’s not what I’m thinking about. There’s something even bigger coming down: the Environmental Protection Agency is going to release final standards to…
Read MoreYellowstone Grizzly Bears Safer For Now
Yellowstone grizzly bears warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act. So says the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals which recently upheld a lower-court ruling that rejected a federal government effort to strip the bears of their protections. When the government “delisted” the bears in 2007, which stripped them of protections under the Endangered Species…
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