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Looking 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…
Read MoreNail Down the Furniture
Have they no shame? (Hint: No.) We speak of the current band of varlets and scoundrels just ending their eight-year reign of terror in our nation’s capital. With both presidential candidates lambasting Mr. Bush and his henchmen daily, the lame ducks are hell-bent on wreaking as much havoc as they can in these last not-quite-three-months…
Read MoreThree Months that Shook the World
So the fate of the Roadless Rule is now in the hands of three judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, at least its immediate fate, following a hearing this week in San Francisco. The Forest Service, represented by the Justice Department, wants the three judges to overturn a Sept. 2006 decision that found…
Read MoreEnergy Efficiency: Powerful Foe of Global Warming
Energy conservation is the biggest, cheapest way to avoid building new power plants and significantly fight global warming. And it offers powerful economic benefits, as California has found through aggressive programs that have created 1.5 million jobs while cutting energy bills by $56 billion since 1972. Moreover, energy conservation is something individuals can help with…
Read MoreEcuador Gives Rights to Nature
Most environmentalists believe that nature has a right to exist for its own sake, but that’s not how the law works in our country. In the United States, nature is defensible only if a human will miss the forest, species, or clean water when it is gone. To use the law, a human must first…
Read MoreFlorida Takes On Global Warming
I just finished a year-long appointment on Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s Action Team on Energy and Climate Change. We released a blueprint that, if put into action, would make Florida one of America’s most aggressive states in tackling climate change. We studied the gamut: alternative energy sources, vehicle emissions, landfill gases, forestry practices, building construction,…
Read MoreCrisis and Opportunity
The late Dan Luten was sneakily brilliant, somewhat iconoclastic, and possibly a maverick had that word not been so debased lately. In his fifties, he left a job as a chemist with Shell Oil to teach geography at Cal and became deeply involved in conservation. He served on the board of Friends of the Earth,…
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