EDITOR’S NOTE – MOBILE, Ala. – It’s simple. Opposition to the toll for a new bridge crossing Mobile Bay is overwhelming, and since the proposal claims the project cannot be completed without the toll money, it is dead in the water. You can read all about it here, and see the mainstream press coverage here…
By Glynn Wilson – The death of conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, 79, may be the best thing to happen for the future of the planet than anything since the national Sierra Club and 350.org convinced President Obama to take on climate change due to global warming from the burning of fossil fuels…
By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – After a couple years trudging through the weeds and thickets of laws, regulations, technical standards, hazard assessments, health effects, economic impacts and other consequences of petroleum storage tanks, Mobile has arrived at nearly the same place it began this trek. On June 11 a three-member subcommittee presented its…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — A few years ago, Princeton graduate Charles Scribner with the Black Warrior Riverkeeper in Birmingham saw my coverage of the BlueGreen Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference in Washington, D.C. and sent me an e-mail asking an important question: Do you think it would be…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – Earlier this month, almost every Republican in the U.S. Senate went on record that “climate change is real and not a hoax.” All but a handful, however, balked at agreeing that humans are contributing to that change. The “not a scientist” club has a new line in the…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — It is quiet on Texas Street as people sleep late on Sunday after the first weekend of Mardi Gras parades for 2015 comes to a close. A writer needs some quiet time to reflect. It is supposed to rain later today so I am…
Planning Commission Denies Rezoning By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — More than 140 residents of Africatown turned out at a town hall public meeting Tuesday night to oppose an industrial rezoning that would open the way for a steel storage warehouse right across the street from a proposed tar sands crude oil tank city…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – It’s incredible that, despite real progress in reducing climate-disrupting carbon emissions, the United States is still charging ahead with a “boom” in dirty fuels and extraction methods. It’s like swallowing aspirin as you beat your head against a wall. What gives? By now, it’s clear that the dirty…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – In a narrow victory for common sense, yesterday the Senate rejected an attempt to legislate approval of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. Senators like California’s Barbara Boxer, Hawaii’s Brian Schatz, and Virginia’s Tim Kaine stood up as environmental champions and deserve our thanks for their leadership. But…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – What a difference a week makes. This morning we awoke to the news that President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry have negotiated a historic joint announcement on climate change and clean energy cooperation. Coming from the world’s two largest economies and two biggest carbon emitters, the new…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – I’m not going to lie, this week’s election was a blow. That’s exactly why we’re doubling down now, and I need to know you are too. Friends of Big Oil have taken control of the Senate, and they have a 100-day action plan that reads like Big Oil’s…
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 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…
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 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…
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…
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…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – When Scotsman John Muir first started the Sierra Club in 1892 with the three purposes to promote recreation in nature to help save it through conservation activism and public education, I think he grasped something about how human nature works that we seem to have lost in…
Coming Clean – By Michael Brune – In his 19th-century curmudgeon’s classic, The Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce defined a plan as “the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.” When the EPA released its “Clean Power Plan” this month for reducing carbon pollution from power plants, the agency was clear about the results it expects…
