On Friday evening, my husband Patrick and I were putting our daughter to bed and preparing an emergency kit at the same time. Due to the heat wave that had struck the lower southeast, we had already sweltered through a day where the heat index pushed past 110 degrees. I had obsessively watched the news -- expecting kitschy stories of reporters holding infrared thermometers to picnic tables and hollering, “145 degrees – can you believe…
This past week the Obama Administration announced $62 million in new funding for the advanced biofuels industry. The White House's goal is to jump-starting the commercial-scale development of drop-in biofuels – biofuels that do not require special infrastructure to be blended with gasoline or diesel - for use by the U.S. Navy, Air Force, and as a general transportation fuel for motorists. The funding is a joint effort by the U.S. Department of…
Over the past several years, Chinese overseas investments have had a powerful global impact, from the Gibe 3 dam in Ethiopia, to the Alberta tar sands in Canada, to the Shwe oil and gas project in Myanmar. In the past, many of these environmentally and socially controversial mega-projects were bankrolled by development institutions such as the World Bank, national export credit agencies, or big Wall Street banks. But increasingly, Chinese banks have…
Who will join the fight to save the dolphins? Consumer boycotts and “save the dolphin” demonstrations over the course of many years resulted in a U.S. program for dolphin safe labeling for tuna products. Most Mexican commercial fishing operations, however, continued to ignore U.S. dolphin safe practices. They can still sell their tuna products in the U.S., but may not display the U.S. Department of Commerce dolphin safe label. As reported in our blog…
Rio+20 and the People’s Summit (attended by more than 50,000 people) both came to a close over the weekend. Much effort from many individuals was poured into relatively few days of meetings. Both events required months of preparation, with some aspects of the meetings even taking years to prepare. You can imagine what it feels like when all of that comes to a close. All of that energy that had been running nonstop was…
A short piece appeared in the New York Times on Tuesday, quietly noting that one of the three regional Army Corps of Engineers offices reviewing TransCanada’s federal permit application to build the Keystone XL pipeline through Oklahoma and Texas had rubber-stamped the southernmost section through Texas the day before.
On the afternoon that the Times piece ran, concerned Texans -- slated to neighbor this portion of the pipeline -- packed a state oil…
Why is the Incredible Hulk smoothly whistling on YouTube as he takes a dollar and draws a Robin Hood mask on George Washington’s mug? Because Mark Ruffalo -- who plays the green superhero in the movie The Avengers -- stars in a video to kick off the U.S. Robin Hood Tax campaign. The video also features Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, Chris Martin of Cold Play, nurses, clergy, AIDS activists, students,…
You’d think the State Department would’ve learned its lesson from the first round of review of the controversial Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline, wouldn’t you?
Especially after it took 1,253 people risking arrest on President Obama’s doorstep (including Friends of the Earth staff and activists), dogged and escalated action targeting the administration, and a New York Times front page exposé on conflicts of interest in the department’s review of the…
The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, located in San Clemente, Calif., between Los Angeles and San Diego, poses a threat to the health and safety of the people of southern California. The reactors have been shut down for nearly five months, following a release of radioactive steam into the environment and the related discovery that recently installed steam generators in both reactors were critically damaged and defective. This current crisis at San Onofre is
Politicians and industry folks have been arguing for years that the best way to transition away from petroleum-based fuels and save the world from climate doom is to use biomass for electricity and to run our cars. That is, burn our food and forests for energy.
Think about that for a minute...does burning our forests to save the planet even make sense? It seems like an easy "no." Unfortunately, according to a 2011 report,…