environmental justice
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Must-read new story on the Tennessee coal ash disaster and the myth of “clean coal”
Stop what you’re doing and proceed immediately to the current issue of GQ magazine, which contains a blockbuster piece of investigative journalism: “Black Tide,” by Sean Flynn. Here’s the slug: Just days before Christmas last year, an environmental disaster one hundred times the size of the Exxon Valdez (yes, you read that right) unfolded on […]
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Toxic waste from New York river cleanup headed to Texas
In a bit of good news for the environment, work got underway this week to clean up hazardous PCB pollution that General Electric dumped into New York’s Upper Hudson River. But there’s also some bad news — which is that the toxic waste is being sent to a landfill that sits atop the Ogallala Aquifer, […]
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Coal Ash Dumped on the Disadvantaged
In December, a coal slurry impoundment owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) gushed 50 times more toxic waste than the Exxon Valdez in a well publicized and inevitable disaster that unjustly ruined many homes and downstream ecosystems. So how to describe what’s happening to the sludge currently being dredged from waterways and swimming pools? […]
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Pennsylvania rejected TVA coal ash that’s going to poor communities in Alabama and Georgia
Some of the more than 1 billion gallons of toxic coal ash that spilled from an impoundment at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston power plant in eastern Tennessee last December is making its way to landfills in poor and black communities in Alabama and Georgia, as we reported last week at Facing South. It turns […]
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The Goldman Prize: True tales of bravery
The 2009 winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize. Standing, L-R: Yuyun Ismawati, Olga Speranskaya, Wanze Eduards, and Maria Gunnoe. Front row, L-R: Rizwana Hasan, Marc Ona Essangui, and Hugo Jabini By rights it should be a daunting moment. Every fall a courier turns up at my door with a package containing a thick, densely typed […]
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A multicolored good food movement
Photo courtesy of M J M, via FlickrAs the good food movement matures, its members have begun discussing its inclusiveness. This week, at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s ninth Food and Society Conference, speaker after speaker touched upon the topic of race and access to good food. “Who is at the table?” asked Anim Steel, Director […]
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Screw Earth Day? Not so fast
Earth Day, to be observed for the 40th time on April 22, ranks just below motherhood and ahead of baseball and apple pie on the American cultural hit parade. Gaylord Nelson.Photo: Fritz AlbertWorldwide, organizers say a billion people will observe Earth Day this year, making it the largest secular civic event in the world. So […]
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Broadening the Earth Day tent
Mike CermakAs someone who spends half his time teaching and studying in a university among some rather well-off and highly educated young people, and the other half working as an environmental educator in urban high schools, I see a range of responses to the message and spectacle of Earth Day. At my university, I’m fairly […]
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Wangari Maathai film shows Kenyan tree planting as political subversion
Planting trees in Kenya is about more than just helping the environment.Alan Dater Planting trees in deforested areas brings a host of benefits, as any good environmentalist knows. Trees provide cleaner air, richer soil, wildlife habitat, and shade. They conserve water and protect lands against floods. They absorb carbon dioxide. Under the rule of an […]
