Last week, NPR took a deeper look at the natural gas boom in the U.S. The special series, “The Fracking Boom: Missing Answers,” questions what the gas boom is doing to the air and water in communities where fracking has become a household name…
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Ohio Department of Natural Resources Waters Down Fracking Regulations for Oil and Gas Drillers
Ohio Environmental Council
05-21-2012
Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s once promising energy plan has emerged from the Ohio Senate worse for wear. And part of the wear was requested by his own Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), according to news reports…
Thousands of our members are exposed to styrene on the job. They have a right to know the truth—that our government has found that styrene exposures may lead to cancer in humans—and this listing makes it publicly known…
Over the last few weeks, Heartland has lost at least $825,000 in expected funds for 2012. This equates to more than 35 percent of the funds it’s planned to raise from corporate donors, according to Forecast the Facts…
Does Exposure to Natural Gas Wells Make People Sick? Proposed Health Study Can Find Out
Frack Check WV
05-18-2012
The study would look at detailed health histories of hundreds of thousands of people who live near the Marcellus Shale, a rock formation in which energy companies have already drilled about 5,000 natural gas wells…
New Mexico’s failure to enforce its own rules highlights the need to close oil and gas loopholes in the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. OCD’s inadequate performance shows why citizens need to have federal standards…
Chemical Industry Challenged to Repudiate Unethical Members
Safer Chemicals Healthy Families
05-17-2012
Today Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families called on American Chemistry Council (ACC) President Cal Dooley to expel three flame retardant manufacturers whose deeply unethical practices were the subject of a four-part Chicago Tribune investigative series…
Instead of focusing on new sources of clean energy and jobs created by American innovation, which will reduce our addiction to oil and enhance public health, API’s recent report envisions an America that drills more, despite having…
In Durban the world agreed to develop a new climate plan by 2015 to go into effect in 2020, but we need action now, and an agreement to phase down HFCs under the Montreal Protocol is the best strategy this year…
It’s bad enough that the Obama administration pawns publicly-owned coal for export, and seriously entertains approval of the tar sands pipeline. It’s as if the Obama administration wants to push climate pollution…
I suspect that if you asked people why they don’t use a bike for those short trips, you’d hear one answer more than any other: “I just don’t feel safe riding in traffic.” That’s understandable, because most of our roads and cities have been…
Although we already knew about their involvement, what is shocking is the extent of this involvement, which becomes apparent in this new investigation. The new investigation reveals that “Koch Industries has touched virtually every aspect…
Around three quarters of Europeans live in cities. Most of Europe’s wealth is generated in cities, and urban areas are particularly at risk due to climate change. Europe should seize the opportunity of improving…
Just over a week ago, the world stood up to Connect the Dots on climate impacts. 5/5/12 was a beautiful, inspiring, occasionally heartbreaking day. It’s hard to describe what it felt like to watch the world come together…
UN Global Compact Turns a Blind Eye to Corporate Malpractices
Friends of the Earth International
05-14-2012
Corporate lobbying within UN negotiations has managed to block effective solutions for global problems related to climate change, food production, poverty, water and deforestation. Instead, false…
Recent health data prepared for Earthjustice, the American Lung Association and the Clean Air Task Force—summarized in the report Sick of Soot—demonstrates that with updated standards, more than 35,000…
That’s why yesterday, climate activists joined a movement fighting many of Bank of America’s short-sighted investment policies: racist and predatory lending, robo-signed foreclosures, loans for mountaintop removal…
Group Files Suit to Obtain Records of Closed Door Clean Air Act Meetings at White House
Environmental Integrity Project
05-11-2012
Industry lobbyists have every right to meet with the White House about EPA rules. But the public ought to know what was said at these meetings and whether it influenced decisions that are supposed to protect our health and the environment…
Visualize gasoline-powered civilization arising as if by some maniacally accelerated evolutionary process. It all began so recently, in the mid-nineteenth century, and spread across the globe in mere decades. Automobiles mutated…
New Legislation Would End More Than $110 Billion in Fossil Fuel Subsidies
Friends of the Earth
05-10-2012
Today Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) announced legislation that is by far the most comprehensive attempt to end subsidies for the fossil fuels industry in the U.S…
Besieged by Climate Deniers, A Scientist Decides to Fight Back—Plus Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Interview
Michael E. Mann
05-09-2012
For more than a decade, I’ve found myself targeted and attacked by political interests who feel threatened by some facts my colleagues and I uncovered about our changing climate. We have received menacing e-mails, including anonymous death threats…
The Guardian Exposes Fossil Funded Groups Coordinating Renewable Energy Attacks
DeSmogBlog
05-09-2012
On May 8 The Guardian revealed the network of fossil-funded groups coordinating the ongoing onslaught of attacks on renewable energy, particularly wind power. A memorandum passed to The Guardian from the…
Social psychologists and demagogues have long known that if ordinary citizens are to be provoked to violent actions against individuals or groups or fellow scientists, it is necessary to sever the emphatic bond with those to be attacked by…
The other, of course, is environmental catastrophe. Practically every country in the world is taking at least halting steps towards trying to do something about it. The U.S. is also taking steps, mainly to accelerate the threat. It is the only major country that is not…
CCS technology is worth exploring as one of a large array of potential strategies for slowing the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere. But as this report demonstrates, right now there’s little progress in realizing this potential. A technology capable of permanently sequestering…
Environmental Groups Launch Major Campaign to Defend Nature and Democracy in Canada
Pembina Institute
05-07-2012
Known as Black Out Speak Out (or Silence, on parle!, in French) the campaign will invite organizations, businesses and citizens from across Canada to darken their websites on June 4, and speak out against changes introduced in the…
Except for the hours when I went out to the events nearest my home in Vermont, I’ve been by the computer, transfixed by the images streaming in…
That’s why June 5 is another day of action here in the U.S.: A day to tell our government to get Wall Street out of Rio. The Rio+20 “green economy” agenda is being driven by interests that seek to privatize nature by further deregulating industry and handing our…
Warren Buffett, the third wealthiest man on the planet (net worth: $44 billion), often referred to as the “Oracle of Omaha,” is the target of a May 5 action called for by Stop Coal B.C. Well, not Buffett directly, but a rail company he owns through his…
So here’s a prediction: next Sunday, no matter how big and beautiful the demonstrations may be that we’re mounting across the world, “Face the Nation” and “Meet the Press” won’t be connecting the dots. They’ll be gassing along about Newt Gingrich’s…
I’ve been giving lectures on Peak Oil for over a decade now, and always look forward to the question period after the main show. Here are the top 11, along with brief sample replies and some resources for further reading…
