Environmental Justice

Lawsuit accuses Virginia power company of poisoning Dominican community with toxic coal ash 0
Posted 1 week, 3 days ago A civil lawsuit in state court in Delaware charges AES Corp. -- one of the world's largest power companies -- with illegally dumping 160 million pounds of toxic coal ash waste onto beaches in the Caribbean nation of the Dominican Republic, leading to serious health problems for nearby residents.
Climate Citizen: Majora Carter 0
Posted 2 weeks ago
Two words: endocrine disruptor

Consumer Reports finds BPA traces in common canned foods 14
Posted 2 weeks, 2 days ago Bisphenol A, commonly abbreviated as BPA, is vile stuff--not the kind of thing a smart species knowingly introduces into its ecosystem. Tom Philpott marvels that we're doing just that---and storing food in it, no less.
Polluted Southern communities ask EPA to address environmental injustice 0
Posted 3 weeks, 1 day ago Environmental justice leaders representing more than a dozen polluted communities from six Southern states met with Environmental Protection Agency leaders this week and asked them to take action to better protect the health of low-income communities and communities of color.
EMA, meet Uma

Happy birthday, EMA Awards ... and you other groups, too 0
Posted 1 month ago This weekend marks the twentieth annual Environmental Media Association awards -- see who else is celebrating a milestone this year, and vote for which party you'd attend.
Why the Second Circuit ‘nuisance’ case brings good news, and bad (part II) 1
Posted 1 month, 3 weeks ago In an earlier post, we explored the background, context, and historical significance of the Second Circuit decision handed down late Monday in Connecticut v. AEP, in which the court ruled that a group of states and environmental groups could sue several major electric utilities for contributing to a “public nuisance” in the form of global warming. In this post, we’ll explore the various next steps and implications of this decision, and explain why it brings even a greater sense of urgency to Congress’s ongoing deliberations of climate legislation.
Why the Second Circuit “nuisance” case brings good news, and bad (part 1) 0
Posted 1 month, 4 weeks ago Coverage and analysis is slowly trickling in of the landmark ruling [pdf] handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit late yesterday, in which a 2-judge panel held that a group of states and environmental groups could sue several electric utility companies for creating a “public nuisance” through their emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases.
Make way, wonks -- the rest of us are coming to the table

Climate change is a poverty issue 20
Posted 2 months ago
Why does an anti-poverty activist care about carbon emissions? Because climate change is an economic-justice issue. Regardless of how our government ultimately decides to handle climate change policy, poor people will be affected. They can be included in the new clean energy economy or they can be further pushed out in the cold.
Ripe tomato

Large Florida grower steps up for farm workers 0
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago
After two years of stasis, a breakthrough in the struggle for living wages in Florida tomato country.
No justice, no sustainability

‘Time’ was right about cheap food—but forgot farmworkers 10
Posted 2 months, 2 weeks ago
'Time' ran a powerful cover story recently about the the real costs of supposedly cheap food. But it left out a key aspect: systematic abuse and impoverishment of farm workers.
Listen up

A new sound, a new economy 0
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago
People often ask what the environment has to do with poverty and why communities of color are getting so active in the fight against climate change. Earlier this week, Green For All released a video that gets to the heart of the matter.
Summer of solutions

Youth find new ways to fight climate change from the ground up 5
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
Fossils like Washington Post columnist George Will may think that "the Mall does not reverberate with youthful clamors about carbon." But that's because a growing number of young people are engaged in less-visible efforts at the grassroots level.
Block party

Obama admin teams with grassroots groups to ‘Green the Block’ 1
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
Green the Block is a new effort by the White House and two grassroots organizations -- Green for All and Hip Hop Caucus -- to bring the benefits of green jobs and clean tech to poor and underserved communities.
Chipotle grilled

Burrito chain’s Food, Inc. sponsorship generates off-screen drama over farm-worker issues 22
Posted 4 months ago
Chipotle Mexican Grill is sponsoring Food, Inc. screenings nationwide. But the film's director and producer--Robert Kenner and Eric Schlosser--have publicly called out the burrito giant over farm-worker issues. What gives? Tom Philpott digs in.
Green Jobs, Green Justice

NAACP resolves to fight climate change 1
Posted 4 months ago
The NAACP celebrated its centennial last week by jumping into the policy debate over global warming.
North Carolina governor asked to address hog industry’s health impacts 0
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago
Environmental advocates gathered at the North Carolina legislature yesterday for a press conference and prayer vigil asking the governor to create a task force to study and take action on health problems associated with industrial hog farms.
alabama's ashhole?

Decision to dump TVA’s spilled coal waste in Alabama community sparks resistance 0
Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago
The EPA approved a plan last week to dump 3 million tons of coal ash that spilled from a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in eastern Tennessee in an impoverished, largely African-American community in Alabama.
You'll be sorry, Ms. Jackson

Rural county asks EPA chief not to make it ‘The Ash Hole of Alabama’ 2
Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago
The residents of Perry County in central Alabama are none too excited about the prospect of their home becoming "The New Ash Hole of Alabama."
Slip Slidin' Away

Was the Tennessee coal ash disaster really a once-in-a-lifetime event? 0
Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago
A new report from an engineering firm hired by the Tennessee Valley Authority identified factors behind last year's disaster that unleashed more than a billion of gallons of toxic ash from a massive storage pond at the federal company's Kingston plant. It claims that the disaster was a one-of-a-kind event -- but skeptical coal ash watchdogs are calling for a more thorough investigation by federal authorities.
The issue is not growth or no growth, but a better world

Growing a better world 5
Posted 5 months ago
Questioning growth has been the obsessive focus of many for decades. Questioners make important points. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been, at best, a very rough proxy for wellbeing, often not even that. For this and other reasons many liberals, progressives, and leftists consider a "steady state economy" part of building a good society. For all that critics of growth get right, they focus in the end on the wrong thing, on growth rather than waste.