Dominican Republic

In the Caribbean, a tale of murder in a depleted forest

“Death by a Thousand Cuts” tells the stories found at the deadly intersection of inequity and resource crisis.

Lawsuit accuses Virginia power company of poisoning Dominican community with toxic coal ash

Here’s the damage from a coal ash spill in Tennessee.A civil lawsuit filed last week in state court in Delaware charges Arlington, Va.-based AES Corp. — one of the world’s largest power companies — with illegally dumping 160 million pounds of toxic coal ash waste onto beaches in the Caribbean nation of the Dominican Republic, […]

And demonstrations

One of punk's great anthems was one of the Clash's first great songs:

White riot
I wanna riot
White riot
Riot of my own.

This was a sincere wish on the late Joe Strummer's part, and to some extent, his wish came true.

The punk movement was a riot in music. His audiences were uncontrollable and he liked that, mostly. He saw a few riots and wanted more, to get people stirred up, showing their desires, demanding change.

Could the ferment in present-day environmental interest be showing up in spontaneous demonstrations?

I have seen a few examples in the news of what sounds -- at least from afar -- like environmental riots.

This kind of demonstration of environmental rage rarely, if ever, seems to happen in the this country, so perhaps we -- including reporters -- aren't primed to expect it and report on it.

But consider: