Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – The fossil-fuel divestment movement has been on a roll lately to the tune of $50 billion, but one of its biggest successes happened last month: The world’s most profitable oil company squirmed. Exxon Mobil’s vice president of public and government affairs published a critique of divestment that concluded…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – California may be famous for its beaches, but what really defines the state’s geography are its many mountain ranges (and I’m not just saying that because the Sierra Club took its name from one of them). Last Friday, President Obama permanently protected one of those mountain ranges —…
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Due to federal regulations, like it or not, automobile fuel economy has hit an all time high in the United States, while carbon dioxide emissions are now at a record low, according to a report from the Environmental Protection Agency. Model year 2013 vehicles achieved an average of…
Africatown News – By Joe Womack – A Renaissance is unfolding surrounding the Africatown Community here in Mobile County Alabama. The Africatown Community received a visit from a member of the Council for The Preservation of National Historical Treasures located in Washington,D.C. to determine dangers posed to Africatown by decisions made by businessmen and politicians.…
By David Underhill – NEW YORK, N.Y. – Teddy Roosevelt looked down from his bronze horse and saw time spin off course. The forged Indian and African afoot beside him for nearly a century abandoned the pedestal and strode into the street. In the Museum of Natural History behind him the display cases showing natives…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – If anyone doubted the existence of a mighty climate movement in this country, then the sight of more than 400,000 determined, joyful, vociferous people marching through midtown Manhattan in the People’s Climate March in New York City last Sunday has set them straight. Even for those of us…
By Nick Engelfried – On August 28, 1963, 200,000 people swarmed into the nation’s capital for one of the most iconic moments in the civil rights movement: the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. More often remembered today simply as the March on Washington, it was seen by many as a turning point for…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – I’ve long known how wasteful, destructive, and dangerous the process of extracting oil from tar sands is. To get one barrel of oil, you have to dig up four tons of dirt and rock. Beautiful old-growth boreal forest becomes a wasteland. And that single barrel of oil? It…
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – Remember those photos from Pakistan several years ago? Squadrons of unruly lawyers in suits and ties, some with flowing wigs left over from British imperial days, wielding brief cases like cudgels in the streets to protest an insult to themselves and the constitution by autocratic rulers? Now picture…
WASHINGTON — ExxonMobil Pipeline Company has agreed to pay a civil penalty for a violation of the Clean Water Act stemming from a 2012 crude oil spill from ExxonMobil’s “North Line” pipeline near Torbert, Louisiana. Under the consent decree lodged Tuesday in federal court, ExxonMobil will pay $1,437,120 to resolve the government’s claim, according to…
Earth’s atmosphere contains an unexpectedly large amount of an ozone-depleting chemical compound from an unknown source, surpassingly, decades after the compound was banned worldwide, according to new research out from NASA published in the Aug. 18 issue of Geophysical Research Letters. Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4), once used in dry cleaning and fire-extinguishers, was regulated in 1987…
By Glynn Wilson – The Sierra Club filed a petition Friday with the U.S. Department of Transportation requesting an emergency order prohibiting the use of DOT-111 rail tank cars for transporting flammable Bakken and other volatile fracked crudes. The National Transportation Safety Board has repeatedly found that DOT-111 tank cars are prone to puncture on…
A new NASA field campaign will begin flights over the Arctic this summer to study the effect of sea ice retreat on Arctic climate. The Arctic Radiation IceBridge Sea and Ice Experiment (ARISE) will conduct research flights Aug. 28 through Oct. 1, covering the peak of summer sea ice melt, according to a release just…
By Glynn Wilson – The controversial Keystone XL pipeline being constructed from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast could produce four times more global warming causing carbon pollution than the U.S. State Department estimated earlier this year, according to a new study out from scientists at the Stockholm Environment Institute published Sunday in the journal…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – With a couple of decisions in 2001 and 2006, the Supreme Court managed to break the Clean Water Act by calling into question what Congress meant by “the waters of the United States.” The existing law had been working just fine for almost 30 years. When the Clean…
A new standard that limits miners’ exposure to the coal dust that causes black lung “will save miners’ lives,” the AFL-CIO Executive Council said in a statement issued Thursday at the council’s summer meeting at AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington, D.C. The Mine Safety and Health Administration issued the final rule in April and it goes…
The signs of climate change are all around us, according to a new report just released by the White House. The average temperature in the United States during the past decade was 0.8° Celsius (1.5° Fahrenheit) warmer than the 1901-1960 average, and the last decade was the warmest on record both in the United States…
A new study by scientists at NASA and the University of California at Irvine finds more than 75 percent of the water loss in the drought-stricken Colorado River Basin since late 2004 came from underground sources. The extent of groundwater loss may pose a greater threat to the water supply of the western United States…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – Everyone has an occasional bad day at work, but it’s tough to top the one that Rep. Eric Cantor had last month in Virginia. Overnight, he went from being one of the most powerful figures in Congress to a trivia question: Name the first House majority leader in…
By Glynn Wilson – MARION, Va. — Who says government is so bad? The Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation employs young people every summer to engage Virginia’s youth in a structured program of important conservation and park projects on public lands while providing learning that fosters teamwork, self-esteem, social responsibility and respect for the…
