Energy
News media ultimately responsible for predicted, emerging catastrophes
August 26, 2012
An Aug. 23 segment on NPR's Morning Edition about the 2012 drought touched my sentimental side when a Kentucky farmer's voice quivered while he spoke to correspondent David Schaper. "My wife and I just look at each other every night, and we look at our children's faces before they go to sleep, and we wonder, will this be one of the last days?" he said. The piece was titled "Drought Extends Reach, Some Farmers Ready to Quit." I've spent a lot of time in Kentucky and writing about the place. I've met guys like this one.
Sadly but predictably, nowhere in the story did Schaper mention the drought's relation to climate change. Neither did the one that preceded it – "How Smokey the Bear Effect Led to Raging Wildfires" – nor any other segment on that morning's story list. Indeed, a search for "climate change" on the NPR website shows no Morning Edition stories the entire month of August. Talk of the Nation, yes. All things Considered, yes. But Morning Edition, no.
While I do sympathize with this family, especially the children, I'd have to advise the Logan County cattle farmer featured in the piece to look in the mirror. He's a victim of manmade climate change. And as a Kentuckian, he bears as much or more responsibility for his fate as anyone in the world. He and his bluegrass neighors, along with all the rest of us, brought the climate-induced 2012 tragedies of drought and wildfires upon ourselves. Payback is indeed a bitch. And we've only begun to pay.
August 17, 2012
The Greene Report is a compilation of environmental stories written by Linda Greene. This week's edition includes:
- Great Lakes action on nuclear reactor risks
- Activists halt operations at mountaintop removal coal mine
- Dow requests approval for GE soy resistant to 2,4-D
- EPA stalling on bee die-offs
- Pennsylvania to shut down one of biggest U.S. coal ash ponds
- Establishment of the Hackmatack National Wildlife Refuge
- U.S. clean-up of Agent Orange-contaminated Vietnam
- Hazards of “green” household cleaners
- Nigerian oil spill near Exxon operations
- Ukrainian environmentalist murdered
August 14, 2012
News Release
Valley Watch
Last week, headlines in this region showed that Kentucky placed first and Indiana fourth in the release of toxic chemicals to our air from coal plants, according to a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
None of the stories looked at the cross border figures like the region considered the “tri-state” of Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. Therefore Valley Watch decided to take this ominous study a step further and did its own analysis of those coal-fired power plants that currently operate within a 100 kilometer radius (62 miles) of Vanderburgh County.
Our analysis of EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory and EPA’s eGrid power plant data base reaffirms the shocking problem we have in this area which sports the largest concentration of coal plants in North America, if not the world, at 15,113 megawatt total capacity.
August 3, 2012
The Greene Report is a compilation of environmental stories written by Linda Greene. This week's edition includes:
- ArcelorMittal agrees to clean up contaminated Lake Michigan site
- Latinos’ attitudes toward the environment
- Rainforest havens at risk
- Fracking: who’s in control?
- Texans poisoned by oil and gas facilities
- Utilities spend millions on attacking EPA action while deaths accumulate
- Murder of environmental activists
- Oil company threatens 284 remaining beluga whales
- Oil dispersants disrupt the ocean food chain
Citizen, physician concerns ignored by public-private conspiracy
July 24, 2012
In his state of the city address on Feb. 16, 2010, Bill Schmitt, mayor of the southern Indiana city of Jasper, addressed the topic of what to do with the city’s idle coal-fired power plant. One option, he said, according to the Dubois County Herald, would be to convert the plant to a “green-energy-producing facility.”
Little did anyone realize at the time that his comment would turn out to be an early salvo in what has become a bitter, protracted battle between the people of Jasper and their local government.
July 20, 2012
The Greene Report is a compilation of environmental stories written by Linda Greene. This week's edition includes:
- Push for high-speed rail in Indiana
- Earth First! temporarily halts fracking operation
- Fossil fuels draining water supply in middle of drought
- Four environmental victories in two weeks
- Victory for baby sea turtles in Puerto Rico
- Critical fight to save Alaska’s Bristol Bay wilderness
- Problem at California nuclear power plant is worse than originally thought
- Dirty Dozen, Clean 15 produce
- Big polluters opposing EPA’s regulations on soot
- Bureau of Land Management to safeguard public lands from fracking, with public pressure
June 29, 2012
News Release
Citizens Action Coalition
Fed up with the undue influence of the energy companies, utilities, lobbyists and other interests that are making it impossible for Washington to move forward decisively in achieving America’s clean energy future, Citizen Action Coalition (CAC) is joining forces with 35 other citizen organizations with more than 1.1 million combined members to advance a nine-point “American Clean Energy Agenda” and to push for a serious renewable energy agenda no matter who is the next president or which party controls Congress.
The American Clean Energy Agenda is available at the CAC website.
June 22, 2012
The Greene Report is a compilation of environmental stories written by Linda Greene for the Alternative and WFHB Community Radio's EcoReport. This week's edition includes:
- Threats to Indiana forests multiply
- Big Coal running out of room for disposing coal ash
- Vast amounts of waste from factory farms
- Whales under threat from Japan
- FDA rejects petition to ban bisphenol A for humans
- Congress considers wilderness-protection bills
- Gasoline Regulations Act attacks undermines clean air and public health
- Planting genetically modified crops before they’re proven safe
- Extending nuclear reactor operating licenses for up to 80 years
Read The Greene Report archive on The Bloomington Alternative.
How do 'conservatives' justify authoritarian business models?
June 14, 2012
It is doubtful that schemes to refine synthetic gas and liquids from coal will ever be economical. Indeed, only two countries have used such technology, because they were desperate for transportation fuels. And they were expelled from trading with other countries.
The first was Nazi Germany. The second was apartheid-controlled South Africa.
But that fact seems to escape those who seek giant profits by forcing unwilling consumers to buy their fuels and assume tremendous risks. That is the case in tiny Rockport, a town of a little over 2,000 people on the Ohio River in southwest Indiana. There, a Wall Street-based hedge fund called Leucadia National has developed a business.
May 28, 2012
News release
Citizens Action Coalition
Citizens Action Coalition joined a network of consumer and environmental organizations from the Midwest today and launched a new website to track developments at the controversial and problem-plagued Prairie State Energy Campus (PSEC) coal-fired power plant, currently under construction in southern Illinois.
The website is located at www.prairiestatecoalplant.org.
