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Coal: Good News, and An Opportunity for More

I’ve got two good news pieces this week – and one issue that needs your help. Last week our Michigan Chapter and everyone who loves clean air and clean energy got some great news when the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the Environment (MDNRE) denied a permit for the proposed Wolverine coal-fired power plant.We’re […]

Obama says good-bye to MMS chief

Obama To-Do List, May 27, 2010: Head of Minerals Management Services: Say good-bye Deepwater oil drilling permits: Freeze, six months Oil lease sales off Alaska coast: Cancel Oil lease sales in Western Gulf: Cancel Oil lease sales off coast of Virginia: Cancel Safety standards: Get tough Find out more. BP beatdown BP is medicore at […]

DC rejects soda tax but funds better school food

The Washington, D.C. city council yesterday agreed to fully fund a recently approved “Healthy Schools” initiative — providing more money for school food, as well as funding local produce in school meals and establishing grants to expand school gardens and increase physical education — but not with a controversial “soda tax” as had been proposed. Rather, […]

When recycling goes bad

A coal ash fill under construction at the site of a former Coca-Cola plant in Weldon, N.C.Photo: N.C. Division of Waste ManagementA special Facing South investigation. After coal is burned at power plants, leaving massive heaps of ash, not all of the waste ends up in landfills and impoundments like the one that failed catastrophically […]

Let’s Move needs to get real with the food industry

Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity initiative, Let’s Move, has kicked into high gear. The Presidential Task Force on Childhood Obesity released a landmark report documenting the scale of the problem, complete with a list of 70 recommendations and a set of benchmarks, including the goal of returning the childhood obesity rate to its 1972 level of 5% […]

Global warming vs. biblical armageddon: How will we all die? [VIDEO]

Kids have a right to know the possible scopes of their own demise. You don’t have to put a monkey on trial to figure it out: It’s either gonna be biblical plagues or global climate change. Thank goodness both make a snazzy diorama! [UPDATE]: Leave it to The Onion to cover fake news that turns […]

Obama’s finally connecting the Gulf spill and clean energy. Champagne time?

My request for President Obama is simple, really: Dust off the secret presidential SCUBA suit, invite the Senate’s biggest oil-industry shills on a “fact-finding mission” to the Gulf (promise shrimp cocktails if necessary), and use them to plug up BP’s hole. Failing that, Obama could start talking about the connection between the oil gusher, climate […]

The federal government needs to take command of the disaster response

This post is co-authored by Tom Kenworthy. There are obvious limits to how much control the federal government can exert over the frantic and so far hapless effort to stem the catastrophic oil eruption that threatens the entire Gulf of Mexico with ecological devastation. As Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen said Monday, the government does […]

How would you stop the Gulf oil gusher?

Plug it up? If only it were so simple …They’ve tried underwater robots, a containment dome, a riser tube (which has been siphoning up at least a bit of the gushing flow), and relief wells (still being drilled, a process that will take months).  They’re now attempting a top kill.  They might still try a […]

Will Obama admin allow Shell Oil to do to Arctic waters what BP did to the Gulf?

This essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. —– Polar bear approaching Bowhead remains from a previous year’s hunt, Bernard harbor outside Kaktovik, 2001.Photo: Subhankar BanerjeeBear with me. I’ll get to the oil. But first you have to understand where I’ve been and where you undoubtedly won’t go, but […]