Blog
Obama Administration Accused of Giving Human Trafficking Status Upgrade to ‘Further Corporate Trade Agenda’
Controversy over the State Department’s upgrading of Malaysia in its annual human trafficking report continues to swirl, with one organization charging that it shows the administration watering down human rights abuses in an effort to “further its corporate trade agenda.” The latest Trafficking in Persons Report, released last month, has… Read More
The Obama Administration Just Blew Off Human Trafficking Concerns to Pass the TPP
This spring, investigators discovered mass graves of human trafficking victims in Malaysia. How did the U.S. State Department respond? By upgrading its assessment of Malaysia’s human rights efforts. According to Reuters, trafficking experts in the department had given the country a poor rating, but political appointees … Read More
The humble bumble gets its own day of gratitude
Lisa Arkin is the executive director of Beyond Toxics, a Eugene, Ore.-based non-profit that works to protect communities and the environment from toxic pollution. Have you been enjoying watching the furry bumble bees visiting your garden flowers? They seem to be out and about, buzzing the blossoms just at dawn,… Read More
Dirty tax break, dirtier fuel
The U.S.’s operable refinery capacity — that is, the amount of crude oil that can be processed and sold to consumers as liquid fuel — is a whopping 18 million barrels per day. The United States is home to 140 oil refineries, all but six of which were… Read More
Obama unveils sweeping cuts to power plant emissions: ‘We have to get going’
Six years after first promising to “roll back the spectre of a warming planet”, Barack Obama finally committed the US to unprecedented action against climate change on Monday, with sweeping new curbs on carbon emissions from power plants that are equivalent to taking 70% of American cars off the road. The… Read More
How are environmentalists reacting to Obamas Clean Power Plan?
Now that President Obama’s Clean Power Plan has been finalized, environmentalists are practically dancing in the streets. Their public statements range in tone from celebratory to exultant. But scratch the surface and you can see that feelings in some quarters are more complicated. On stage right, the biggest mainstream environmental organizations… Read More
Whats Really Inside The Senates New Bill To Modernize The Energy System
On Thursday afternoon, the Senate’s energy committee sent the first wide-ranging energy bill in over six years to the senate floor, but not before weighing it down with an array of provisions that ensure opposition from many environmentalist groups. The bill, as well as any amendments Senate Majority Leader Mitch… Read More
The federal coal program must end or seriously reform
Earlier this year, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell called for “an honest and open conversation about modernizing the federal government’s coal program.” Today I am speaking at the Washington D.C. coal listening session to start that conversation. To be honest and open about our climate reality is… Read More
New paper warns 2 degree limit isn’t enough to stop major sea level rise
In a recently released paper in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussion, former NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen and 16 other researchers detail a climate change future more alarming than the one projected by the IPCC, the leading international body of science on climate. Most importantly, the… Read More
Green Climate Fund faces worrisome developments with big banks, bad process
Developing countries urgently need money — and lots of it — to address climate change. To tackle this tremendous challenge, the international community is looking to the newly established United Nations Green Climate Fund to be the primary channel for multilateral climate finance for the poor and the vulnerable in… Read More