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Bush's National Symbol: Dead Bald Eagles
We expected the worst for the environment from a Bush presidency. And he has never worked harder to meet our expectations than in these last few months. The list of misdeeds is long, and probably sadly familiar. Some of W’s parting shots include: – Gutting key protection in the Endangered Species Act. – Opening millions of…
Read MoreNew Generation Takes Direct Action Against King Coal
The coal industry, whose schemes for scores of dirty new power plants are being challenged in the courts by Earthjustice and other organizations, is also under siege by a new generation of protesters whose favored tactic is nonviolent direct action. Earlier this year, Al Gore issued a call to action—"I believe we’ve reached the stage…
Read MoreThe Obama Dawning
This blog posting by Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen appeared this week in Celsias. For all Americans who care about our environment, which is most of us, a hopeful dawn broke with the election of Barack Obama. During the last eight years the administration did everything it could to privatize the great natural areas in…
Read MoreThere's No Bailing Out Nature
Mathis Wackernagel of the Global Footprint Network had an important (and scary) piece in the San Francisco Chronicle the other day that one hopes the new administration and the new Congress will take note of. Using data from the United Nations and elsewhere, Wackernagel reports that we’ve been overdrawing nature ever since about 1970. That…
Read MoreEnding A Flood of Waste in Florida
Smack in the middle of a groundwater shortage that had Southwest Florida officials begging people to use as little water as possible, agricultural operations opened their pumps wide and flooded millions of gallons of water wastefully over their fields. They had legal permits to do this, permits issued by the Southwest Florida Water Management District,…
Read MoreVoodoo Economics?
Now let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Thanks to two very expensive wars, tax cuts for people who don’t need them, and assorted combinations of malfeasance and corruption, the federal budget deficit is at an all-time high and growing like kudzu. So what’s the response to the financial and monetary crisis? Why bailouts, of…
Read MoreLooking Forward from Las Vegas
I happened to be in Las Vegas during the final days of the election. It was a fitting location to watch the most historic election of my lifetime conclude with an outcome that many people I know felt was improbable less than a year ago. Vegas is, after all, a city familiar with difficult odds,…
Read MoreKids' Bodies Aren't Toxic Waste Dumps
Why did Obama win? According to today’s lead editorial in The New York Times, it’s because "he saw what is wrong with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens." Nowhere is that more clear than in the Bush Administration’s shameful record on toxic chemicals. For the last 8 years—as government, academic…
Read MoreNew Dawn for the Environment
With the election of Barack Obama, our nation’s long, dark environmental night appears to be ending. By all early indications an era of opportunity will replace eight years of opposition in which Earthjustice was forced to play a mostly defensive role. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for, and with your continued support, we…
Read MoreEcobama?
So what will this incredible development mean for the earth? Time will tell, of course, but we here at Tom’s Turn are quite optimistic, both because of and in spite of what was said in the campaign. The first thing to watch, as always, is the appointments—Interior, Energy, EPA, climate czar if there is to…
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