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Climate Change Debate Heats Up Within GOP
Despite the best efforts of the pollution lobby to end this debate within the Republican Party, it looks like climate change will become a major issue heading into the 2012 election season.
Read MoreHeight—Good For Basketball, Bad For Air
In the world of professional basketball, height is good. Look no further than Dirk Nowitzki, the 7-foot Dallas Maverick whose combination of stature, speed and shooting ability was a decisive factor in his team’s championship victory over the Miami Heat last night. Go Mavs. In the world of coal plant smokestacks, however, height is bad.…
Read MoreUnplugged: In Time for Summer, Energy Efficient Air Conditioning!
The Department of Energy today released stronger new energy efficiency standards for central AC units, furnaces and heat pumps. The new rules adopt levels recommended by a coalition of manufacturing, consumer and environmental groups, including Earthjustice, filed with the department in 2009. Reflecting the varying climates found across the U.S., the rules set up standards…
Read MoreFriday Finds: Deforestation Barbie
Greenpeace battles Barbie for bulldozing trees Mattel, the world’s biggest toy company by revenue, is under fire this week for using Barbie doll packaging that allegedly comes from Indonesian rainforests, reports the Christian Science Monitor. According to forensic testing commissioned by Greenpeace, Mattel and other toy companies used packaging made by Asia Pulp and Paper,…
Read MorePolluting Our Kids' Report Cards
The report card was a jumble of Cs and Ds. As my coworker gazed over his kid’s latest performance in school, a mixture of anger, disappointment, frustration, guilt and uncertainty flooded him. “Where did I go wrong?” he mumbled. No doubt his kid felt a mixture of emotion, too. Report cards can be grueling for…
Read MoreCan I Get a Witness Who Cares About Kids' Health?
The hearing room on the 4th floor of the Dirksen Senate Office building was packed—so packed that some onlookers stood in the back of the room to see the action unfold. All had gathered earlier today for “Air Quality and Children’s Health,” a hearing before members of two subcommittees of the Senate Committee on Environment…
Read MoreBabbitt Calls Out Obama on Wilderness
Bruce Babbitt, Bill Clinton’s Interior Secretary for eight years, gave a speech attacking the current GOP Congress for its anti-environmental jihad. That’s not news. But he also told the Obama administration it wasn’t doing enough to protect western wildlands, and laid out a blueprint for positive steps the president could take to be an environmental champion. That’s news. …
Read MoreA Domino Falls
The Fresno, California, Board of Supervisors has decided not to endorse a proposal by the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group to build a “Clean Energy Park,” outside town. The park would boast two big, 1,600-megawatt, French-made reactors, a solar-thermal plant, and a water desalination facility. The account in the Fresno Business Journal doesn’t mention Japan or Fukushima explicitly, but…
Read MoreTr-Ash Talk: In the Back Pocket of Polluters
Okay, so we’ve established the hazards of coal ash. There is no doubt that arsenic, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, lead, selenium and other toxic metals have no business in our drinking water. So why are 44 of our elected leaders calling on the Obama administration to treat coal ash as a NON-hazardous waste? Let’s back up…
Read MoreThe March Toward Justice Begins
This week more than 600 concerned citizens will participate in the largest mass mobilization against mountaintop removal mining that this country has ever seen, Appalachia Rising: The March on Blair Mountain. Led by many of our dedicated friends and partners in Appalachia, hundreds of people from all across the country, from all stripes and walks…
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