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Boy Scouts New Merit Badge … for Clearcutting?
When one hears the phrase "Boy Scout," one picture that comes to mind is a bunch of youngsters out in the woods, around a campfire, enjoying marshmallows as well as nature. One might assume that on top of "trustworthy," "obedient," and "brave," Boy Scouts might also put protection of the Great Outdoors among their values.…
Read MoreDelight and Dismay over Coal
Contradictory actions by the coal industry this week illustrate how treacherous the road is to a clean energy future for America. On Tuesday, to our delight, developers of the proposed Highwood coal-fired power plant in Montana surrendered and announced that they would instead build natural gas and wind-powered generating plants. The credit for this should…
Read More"Long Live Mineral King…"
After writing a blog item about the storied Mineral King valley, I crafted an essay about it for the High Country News. The news is that it is about to be declared America’s newest wilderness. Here’s how I started the HCN article: "A half-million abandoned mines litter the American West, many dribbling poisons into rivers…
Read MoreThe Drill Baby is Back
When the history of our times is written, I bet the nomination of Sarah Palin for vice president will be seen as one of the more bizarre political aberrations in American history, which has already had plenty. One would think that the resounding repudiation she and Senator McCain suffered in the general election would have…
Read MoreOrganizing to Save the California Delta and West Coast Salmon
Northern Californians have recently launched two grassroots efforts to oppose a proposed peripheral canal that would divert water from the Sacramento River and send it around the West’s largest estuary to irrigate large industrial farms in the Central Valley and Southern California. On January 17th, Water4Fish held a panel discussion at the International Sportsmen’s Expo…
Read MoreDirty Air Raises Risk of Death; Clean Air Extends Life
First the bad news. Over the last decade, hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific studies from all over the world have clearly established a direct link between dirty air and increased risk of death from lung disease. In 2002, for example, California state scientists estimated that microscopic particles of airborne soot from auto exhaust cause more than…
Read MoreEPA is All Ears All of a Sudden
We haven’t gotten much good news out of the Environmental Protection Agency for eight years, but suddenly the news is huge… so big that it deserves an exclamation mark. Bear with me as I wend my way towards the punch line. President Obama and the new folks he’s put in charge at EPA are now…
Read MoreReek of the Feedlot
"Toxic emissions" sounds like a precocious 10-year-old’s euphemism for cattle reek, but that’s how the term is applied in last week’s press release on factory farm exemptions. Presumably because he wanted to go out on a wafting cloud of the odor, Bush tried to make it easier for factory farms to release unsafe levels of…
Read MoreCoal ash spills onto nation's radar
Earthjustice Press Secretary Kathleen Sutcliffe provides this report on the grave threats posed by toxic coal ash produced at our nation’s coal-fired power plants, and the quick action taken by Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans after recent coal ash spills Quick quiz, readers. The byproduct of coal-fired power plants is: a) the nation’s second largest industrial…
Read MoreOptimism — For the First Time in 8 Years
I joined Tuesday’s huge crowd in Washington to witness the inauguration of our 44th President. The people who traveled from all over the country had worked to elect Barack Obama and create a community of hope, optimism, and readiness to tackle the challenges, and that spirit pervaded the Mall. For me, as for so many,…
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