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Court smacks down EPA-sanctioned pollution

Tuesday, August 19, 2008 10:43 PM
In 1990, Congress passed an amendment to the Clean Air Act which ordered a state to set more stringent limits on air pollution if that state determined that the Clean Air Act was insufficient inside its borders. The monitoring requirements and sufficiency
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Backdoor repeal of the Endangered Species Act

Tuesday, August 12, 2008 1:28 PM
We're now witnessing a back-door repeal of the Endangered Species Act: The Bush administration yesterday proposed a regulatory overhaul of the Endangered Species Act to allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency
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EPA turns a blind eye to Gulf of Mexico dead zone

Thursday, July 31, 2008 10:15 PM
Every year, agricultural runoff from Midwestern states pumps extraordinary amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus into the Mississippi River. These chemicals collect at the mouth of the river, in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana. This causes
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Gore calls for totally clean electricity within 10 years

Thursday, July 17, 2008 9:50 PM
Today, Al Gore gave a speech at George Washington University in which he called for a massive push to transform our energy economy; he audaciously suggested that we can and must convert 100 percent of our electricity generation to clean sources within
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EPA admits the problem, refuses to act

Tuesday, July 15, 2008 10:03 PM
A Supreme Court decision from 2007 ( PDF here ) mandated that the Environmental Protection Agency was required under the Clean Air Act to determine if anthropogenic carbon dioxide represents a threat to human health. In December, the EPA sent an email
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Cheney's office tampered with testimony

Tuesday, July 08, 2008 8:50 PM
This is hardly shocking : Members of Vice President Cheney's staff censored congressional testimony by a top federal official on the health threats posed by global warming, a former Environmental Protection Agency official said today. In a letter to Sen.
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Three things that don't surprise me

Monday, June 30, 2008 9:50 PM
Three stories showed up today, and none of them should come as a surprise: 1) Today is the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska event ; on this day in 1908, something (either a small asteroid or a small comet) exploded in the air over Siberia. Although it
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GOP obstructionism and collapsing ice shelves

Tuesday, June 17, 2008 7:32 PM
Today, GOP obstructionists in the Senate filibustered a bill which would have provided tax incentives to build out renewable energy sources and which would have extended tax credits for individuals to purchase plug-in hybrid automobiles. The bill would
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Destroying the Grand Canyon for fun and profit

Sunday, May 04, 2008 10:11 PM
Because of the resurgence of nuclear power, uranium mining claims in the western US have skyrocketed from 2,000 in 2001 to over 43,000 last year. Those claims are now encroaching on the Grand Canyon and other western monuments: On public lands within
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Southern Baptists shift on global warming

Monday, March 10, 2008 8:32 PM
In a fairly surprising move, leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have adopted a position on global warming which stands in direct contradiction to their position taken only a year ago : Signaling a significant departure from the Southern Baptist
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Cargo ships to be propelled by kites

Tuesday, January 01, 2008 8:42 PM
This is very cool : One of the first large cargo ships in 100 years to cross the Atlantic with the help of the wind will set off from European shores this month on a voyage which is due to make maritime history. When the 10,000-tonne Beluga Skysail is
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Applying the brakes, one way or another

Monday, November 19, 2007 10:28 PM
Within the coming years, one (or both) of the following phenomena will force us to apply the brakes to our reckless production of carbon dioxide and our insane habit of burning hydrocarbons for fuel: 1) Peak oil will limit the amount of hydrocarbons we
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An American community poisoned by depleted uranium

Sunday, November 18, 2007 10:37 AM
The Albany suburb of Colonie, New York has spent the last fifty years being slowly poisoned by a now-shuttered depleted uranium weapons plant. The residents continue to suffer the insufferable, bearing the consequences of government negligence. Ironically,
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The ongoing environmental impact of Katrina and Rita

Thursday, November 15, 2007 9:17 PM
This is astonishing : New satellite imaging has revealed that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita produced the largest single forestry disaster on record in America -- an essentially unreported ecological catastrophe that killed or severely damaged some 320 million
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Environmental alarm bells are ringing

Friday, October 26, 2007 8:54 PM
The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has released a landmark report (called GEO-4) on the state of the global environment. Authored by 388 scientists from around the world and peer-reviewed by another 1,000, the report details the most urgent
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The dwindling of birds and the dimming of the lights

Thursday, August 23, 2007 8:27 PM
The phenomenon described in this op-ed piece is also happening here in the South: Earlier this summer, the National Audubon Society released a definitive study of population trends of North American birds, a monumental effort based on decades of Christmas
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Climate change and coffee production

Tuesday, July 24, 2007 7:08 PM
Among other already-tangible effects , climate change has begun to have a negative impact on the coffee crop in Uganda : "Climate change has affected coffee production already," said Philip Gitao, executive director of the East African Fine Coffees Association.
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Climate change and the spread of disease

Sunday, July 22, 2007 7:41 PM
One of the under-reported consequences of global warming is the inevitable spread of infectious diseases, such as malaria, schistosomiasis, dengue fever, and many others. The World Health Organization has been predicting for several years that climate
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Some cold water on nuclear

Monday, July 09, 2007 6:05 PM
This Bloomberg article (via Andrew Eder ) goes into quite a bit of detail about TVA's current and past nuclear program. This part caught my eye (although I don't know how these estimates were derived): Investment banking consultant Gary L. Hunt, president
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A letter to Texas

Saturday, July 07, 2007 11:34 AM
Dear Texas: We hear y'all have been having lots of rain lately . Flooding is never a good thing, and it's been tragic to read of lost lives and destroyed livelihoods. We feel for ya. We here in East Tennessee have a favor to ask: could y'all please send
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