Climate Politics
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Disaster in east Tennessee
The coal ash that spilled from a failed impoundment at TVA’s Kingston plant in eastern Tennessee filled the Emory River, creating huge mounds of toxic waste that locals called ashbergs.Photo: Sarah McCoinA special Facing South investigation. Shortly before 1 a.m. on Dec. 22, 2008, a dike holding back an 84-acre pond of wet coal ash […]
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Despite Pundit Claims, Offshore Drilling Support is Down Significantly
Seizing on a recent NBC/WSJ poll (PDF) showing 60% of Americans continue to support offshore drilling, several journalists and pundits have implied that support for offshore drilling has not declined sharply in recent weeks. As I’ll show below, this is absolutely false. Bill Schneider, National Journal: Nor has the oil spill caused public support for […]
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Conservation legend Russell Train to Senate: Protect the Clean Air Act
Russell E. TrainThe legendary Russell Train was, among many other things, the second administrator of the EPA, serving from 1973-1977 under Nixon and Ford. He was instrumental in making environmental protection a top-line item on the presidential agenda. Later he went on become president of the World Wildlife Fund and in 1991 was awarded the […]
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Matthews tells Obama to kill BP’s disaster capitalism
Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. On Monday, May 17, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews erupted in anger at the oil disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. Matthews expressed his rage at the profits BP continues to reap as it fails to fix the growing environmental apocalypse. He also criticized the behavior of the Obama administration, which […]
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Palin critique latest twist in BP slop
Photo: WikipediaAlmost five weeks into the BP oil disaster and we’re way down the rabbit hole. None other than Sarah “Drill, baby, drill” Palin wondered aloud on Fox News Sunday whether oil company contributions to the Obama campaign are to blame for the president “taking so doggone long to get in there, dive in there, […]
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Coal’s dirty secret
The December 2008 impoundment failure at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston plant inundated a nearby community with toxic coal ash.Photo: United Mountain DefenseA special Facing South investigation. When a billion gallons of coal ash broke loose from a holding pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston power plant near Harriman, Tenn. in December 2008, registered […]
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BP still stonewalling EPA on dispersant chemicals
BP’s oil spill size cover-up started to unravel on Friday as BP finally admitted its figure of 5,000 barrels a day lowballed the true size of the spill. But another of BP’s cover-ups is still going strong. BP has already dumped over 700,000 gallons of chemical dispersant in the Gulf of Mexico – America’s public […]
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10 transportation steps for kicking the offshore-oil habit
One of the most depressing aspects of the Gulf of Mexico oil leak is the idea that we’ve got no choice but to rely on offshore drilling and the stomach-turning dangers it carries. We know all the problems with importing oil from petro-dictatorships. Electric cars aren’t ready to replace fuel-combustion engines. The only option, political […]
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Underground green economy employing millions
UPDATE: Thousands more people are now being employed in the “restoration economy” to clean up the oil spill. Jobs are just one more reason why we need a national effort to restore the Gulf ecosystem. There’s a new economy springing up around the country — but it’s operating almost entirely in secret. It’s called “the […]
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Four House Republicans give a nod to biking, walking
Are Congressional Republicans moving beyond blanket opposition to the Obama administration? Here’s an interesting signal: Four GOP House members signed a letter praising Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood for putting bikers and walkers on equal footing with autos in transportation planning. Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA), Michael McCaul (TX), Jack Kingston (GA), and Steven LaTourette (OH) […]
