Latest Articles

Umbra on baby nurseries

Dear Umbra, I am pregnant and wondering if you know of any websites or resources for setting up a nursery — for green furniture, bedding, and mattresses. We’re painting the nursery with low-VOC paint and looking for low-VOC carpeting, and we gratefully accept used toys and clothes from friends and family. Janine OlsenPine Brook, N.J. […]

In absentia

Posting will be light today -- I'm hip-deep in other things. (Watch for the Obama interview later today.) Should be back on the job tomorrow.

Tirso Moreno, farmworker organizer, answers questions

Tirso Moreno. What’s your job title? General coordinator for the Farmworker Association of Florida. What does your organization do? We work to empower communities of farmworkers and the rural poor, focusing on a wide range of issues, from workplace and community organizing to disaster preparedness and response, from vocational rehabilitation to immigrants’ rights advocacy for […]

So 2003

Luxury SUVs are losing their cool The jerk-offs who drive enormous, fuel-hogging luxury SUVs between their gated McMansions, plastic surgeons, and corporate-whore jobs — not that there’s anything wrong with that — are slowly but surely realizing that they are, in fact, jerk-offs. Sales of all SUVs have dropped, but luxe behemoths like the Hummer […]

Yeah, Right, and Greenland Is Melting

Study confirms that rising ocean temps mean more intense hurricanes A major new study in Science confirms the findings of previous studies: rising ocean temperatures are the primary factor behind stronger, more intense hurricanes in the last few decades. Since 1970, global sea-surface temperatures have risen by 1 degree Fahrenheit, while the yearly number of […]

If At First You Don’t Succeed, Tritium Again

Illinois nuke-plant operator sued for tritium spills it tried to hide Boy, we can’t wait for that “safe, clean nuclear power” President Bush is always talking about, ’cause this stuff we have now is kind of nasty. The Braidwood nuclear power plant in Illinois, owned by Exelon Corp., has been leaking millions of gallons of […]

The Humpty Dance

Bush attempts to weaken Clean Air Act are illegal, court rules Americans who breathe scored a big victory on Friday, when a federal appeals court declared illegal the Bush administration’s long-running effort to undermine pollution rules for coal-fired power plants and other pollution-belching industrial facilities. Judge Judith Rogers, writing for the court, castigated the U.S. […]

Sierra Club Chronicles

Turns out, we're not the only game in town paying attention to the intersection of economic and environmental issues (thankfully). So are the folks over at the Sierra Club Chronicles, a monthly TV series featuring community efforts to protect environmental health.

This month, the series focuses on the fate of DeLisle, Mississippi, home to a Dupont chemical plant. When the plant was first built, it was welcomed by DeLisle's residents, who were hungry for steady work. Twenty-five years later, more than 2,000 current and former residents and employees are suing the company, blaming dioxin and other heavy metals from the plant for the cancer clusters and high illness rates in the area.

The 30-minute film, "Dioxin, Duplicity, and Dupont," will air this Thursday (March 23) at 8:30 PM Eastern and Pacific on Link TV (DIRECTV channel 375 and Dish Network channel 9410). You can also download the film to Video iPod.

Using TV to illumininate and inspire

Last night I watched the film Good Night, And Good Luck. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it. It is currently available on DVD.

The movie is about the 1953 CBS News team (led by Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly) that successfully went head-to-head with the junior senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy. How closely the situation in 1953 mirrors today is disturbing, but CBS's success gives us hope.

Boehlert over and out

Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) -- a frequent ally of environmentalists -- announced today that he won't seek re-election in November.