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  • Erin Brockovich on her novel, Occupy Wall Street, and saving the world

    Erin Brockovich.In the decade or so since her life was immortalized in the Oscar-winning Julia Roberts flick, Erin Brockovich, the real Brockovich has continued her environmental crusade. (To refresh your memory: Brockovich is the working mom who, as a file clerk in a California law firm, stumbled upon records that eventually forced Pacific Gas and […]

    Claire Thompson Health

  • Critical List: Seattle bans plastic bags; at least 100 million trees died in Texas this year

    Seattle is banning retail stores from giving out single-use plastic bags. Paper bags will cost a nickel. Google is investing $94 million in solar projects. As many as 500 million trees died in the Texas drought this year. India could join the U.S. in officially complaining that China's been selling solar panels at too low […]

    Sarah Laskow Health

  • Feds approve Shell’s plan to spill oil in the Arctic

    The Obama administration just approved Shell Oil's plan to drill for oil in the Arctic, and even though it got its way, the company is still whining about "unwarranted restrictions" attached to this approval (it can't drill when winter ice is present, boo fucking hoo). Drilling for oil is challenging even under "normal" circumstances, so […]

    Christopher Mims Health

  • Finally: New air toxics rules for power plants

    Cross-posted from the World Resources Institute. The post was written by Nicholas Bianco, senior associate for WRI’s climate and energy program. As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) prepares to release new mercury and air toxics standards, some people may be wondering about the history and timeline for these standards. One senator recently claimed that […]

    World Resources Institute Health

  • The spookiest horror film about energy waste you’ve ever seen

    David Parker's "Light" depicts light pollution and wasted energy as a sort of Blob, not necessarily malign but relentless and implacable. In the film, energy-burning lights start dripping goo that covers the ground and finally drives people out of their homes — but it's all very quiet and eerie, like a Chris Van Allsburg drawing. […]

    Jess Zimmerman Health

  • GOP tries to force Big Coal’s poison pill on tax cut bill

    Cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green. GOP leadership in Congress has decided to use must-pass payroll tax cut legislation as a vehicle to push key polluter priorities, despite a veto threat from the White House. House Republicans have attached a rider to extend a Clean Air Act loophole for the coal industry, daring a White House veto. […]

    Brad Johnson Health

  • Critical List: Canada out of Kyoto; the Napsack should be on your Christmas list

    Canada is officially out of Kyoto, because it has no chance of meeting its targets and doesn't want to pay the fines. A Russian research team has found plumes of methane bubbling out of the Arctic Ocean. But maybe we should chill out about it, because methane's not as horrible as carbon dioxide? The EPA […]

    Sarah Laskow Health

  • Coming soon: Street View-style maps of the country’s endangered rivers

    Internet time-wasters, start your engines. A nonprofit called Below the Surface is gearing up to map 27 of the country's most endangered rivers using the same technology that gave the world Google Street View. That means 360-degree shots of beautiful, polluted, shrinking, over-tapped waterways for the world to click on (and, hopefully, get fired up […]

    Sarah Laskow Health

  • What are we made of? One word: Plastics

    This story originally appeared in Urbanite. In What’s Gotten Into Us? Staying Healthy in a Toxic World, McKay Jenkins sounds an alarm on the chemicals that we unknowingly ingest and inhale daily.Photo: J.M. GiordanoAfter the discovery of a tumor near his hip, McKay Jenkins, married, father of two, began investigating the manufacturing and consumer use […]

    Ron Cassie Health

  • White House goals for cleaning the Gulf: Fix stuff

    After the BP Deepwater Horizon spill, the Obama administration decided to dig deep into the environmental problems that faced the Gulf Coast and, in the way of governments everywhere, set up a task force to study the issues. This week, that task force released its report. According to the report’s introduction, the president's directive to […]

    Sarah Laskow Health