mining
-
Your best new argument against tar-sands mining: George W. Bush supports it
There are a lot of good arguments for opposing oil-sands development and the Keystone XL pipeline. But just today two more very excellent ones emerged. One involves science. The other involves George W. Bush.
-
Critical List: Selenium dumping gives fish two heads; Germany to cut solar subsidies
A mining company in Idaho wants to keep dumping selenium into local creeks, even after its scientific study turned up these two-headed trout and other deformed fish. A judge found BP liable for civil damages in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, meaning the company could pay billions in penalties. Germany is cutting solar subsidies … […]
-
Critical List: State Department working to reduce emissions; transportation bill vote delayed
The State Department is going to announce this morning a program to reduce shorter-lived greenhouse gases, like methane. The House won’t vote on Republicans’ transportation bill of horrors quite yet. Worldwide, 92 percent of freshwater water goes to agriculture. Mining in Mongolia — good for China, maybe not the best idea for the desert environment […]
-
Critical List: ‘Super fracking’; pollution threatens Lake Titicaca
Natural gas companies are looking into "super fracking," which uses larger, deeper cracks and draws power from our planet’s yellow sun.
West Virginians, Pennsylvanians, and Ohioans are all hoping that Shell will choose to build a petrochemical refinery in their state, because the plant promises jobs.
Maybe it's time to abandon Ulysses S. Grant's laws for federal land, which dictate that hard-rock mining is the best use for any plot. -
Critical List: No Grand Canyon uranium mining; Supreme Court case on wetlands
The Obama administration will announce today that it's limiting uranium mining near the Grand Canyon.
And the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a major environmental case in which the Sacketts, a couple backed by the conservative property rights group Pacific Legal Foundation, claim the EPA unfairly restricted their use of the property by determining that it was a wetland.A Japanese whaling ship is holding three activists who boarded it to protest its activities.
Is there a bubble in shale gas stakes? -
Can we turn mining pits into underground cities?
Architect Matthew Fromboluti designed this inverted skyscraper to make use of abandoned open-pit mining operations in Bisbee, Ariz. The 900-foot underground building (maybe we should call it a mantle-scraper?) wouldn't just be for residences -- it would comprise an entire self-sufficient subterranean city, including crops fed by skylights.
-
The iPhone game that will make you ashamed for having an iPhone
Aw look, it's Phone Story, a fun little game where you produce things and catch things and shoot things at people! It's like Farmville AND Cut the Rope AND Angry Birds! Except that instead of saving your eggs or feeding your dinosaur, you're simulating the production of your iPhone -- which means you're actually abusing workers and manipulating consumers in order to score your points.
-
Here’s what happens to EPA whistleblowers (hint: it isn’t pretty)
Marsha Coleman-Adebayo's new book, No Fear: The Whistleblower's Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at the EPA, tells about the ordeal she went through while working at the EPA in the 1990s. She told NPR:
For me, working at the EPA was a very harrowing experience. … I was surprised that the in environment of the EPA, instead of being rewarded for being proficient in what you do, loyalty was a much greater value. When I began questioning U.S. policy, I was considered disloyal. And at that point, at the minds of many people at the EPA, I had become their enemy.
Coleman-Adebayo says she faced racial and gender-based discrimination during her time at the office. But her real problems started when she questioned her supervisors' reaction to a problem she found out about while working with the 1996 Gore-Mbeki commission in South Africa.
-
Tar-sands emissions could negate all other Canadian carbon cuts
A report from Canada's environmental agency predicts that the rise in greenhouse-gas emissions associated with mining tar-sands oils will be more than double the decrease in the country's emissions from other sources.
Environment Canada said in its emissions trends report that the country could avoid 31 megatons in emissions by 2020. Most of those savings come from switching out natural gas for coal in electricity generation. But in that same period, emissions from tar-sands oil could rise by 62 megatons, the report said.