How Has it Come to This?

By Dahr Jamail
August 22, 2010

The scene is post-apocalyptic. Under a grey sky, two families play in the surf just off the beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana. To get to the beach, we walk past a red, plastic barrier fence that until very recently was there to keep people away from the oil-soaked area. Now, there are a few openings that beach goers can use. The fence is left largely intact, I presume, for when they will need to close the beach again when the next invasion of BP’s oil occurs...

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Long-Awaited Cluster Bomb Ban Enters Into Force; US Straggles Behind

Inter Press Service
By Esther Banales
July 30, 2010

The US, China, Israel and Russia are dragging their feet, why?

...Cluster munitions explode in mid-air to release dozens - sometimes hundreds - of smaller "bomblets" across large areas. Because the final location of these scattered smaller bombs is difficult to control, they can cause large numbers of civilian casualties.

Bomblets that fail to explode immediately may also lay dormant, potentially acting as landmines and killing or maiming civilians long after a conflict is ended. Children are known to be particularly at risk from dud cluster munitions since they are often attracted to the shiny objects and less aware of their dangers...

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Pandora's Oil Well

by: Jill S. Schneiderman
t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
May 11, 2010

Technical jargon conceals by confusion. The immense scale of the problem surrounding the sinking of the Transocean drilling rig, Deepwater Horizon, requires that the public stay alert when confronted with slick lingo. So, I'd like to help readers understand from a geologist's viewpoint the sad absurdity of the Gulf of Mexico situation - one that is much more than yet another "oil spill."...I'm reminded of the Centralia, Pennsylvania, underground coal seam fire that has been burning since 1962.

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Bolivian UN Ambassador Pablo Solon on the World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change and Rights of Mother Earth.

April 19, 2010
DemocracyNow!

Today marks the start of the World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change and Rights of Mother Earth here in Tiquipaya. Bolivian president Evo Morales called for the gathering to give the poor and the Global South an opportunity to respond to the failed climate talks in Copenhagen. We are joined now by Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s ambassador to the United Nations. Prior to his role in the government, Solon was a social activist who worked for several years with different social organizations, indigenous movements, workers’ unions, student associations, human rights and cultural organizations in Bolivia...

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Forests at a Climate Crossroads

By Stephen Leahy*
April 7, 2010
Inter Press Service

Billions of dollars are being mobilised to protect and increase the world's forests under a climate protection mechanism known as REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). But many experts are unsure that it will work, and some fear it could end in disaster...

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EPA proposes blocking West Virginia mountaintop mine

By Renee Schoof
March 26, 2010
McClatchy Newspapers

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed to halt the largest mountaintop mine in Central Appalachia, saying the project would pollute drinking water and harm wildlife in mountain streams, and that the damage to the mountains would be irreversible.

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New Anti-Smog Restrictions Could Warm Planet

by Richard Harris
January 25, 2010
Morning Edition
National Public Radio

...Shindell argues that what's needed is a more holistic approach to the intimately linked problems of climate change and air quality. "I think we need to have policies which try to take into account both air quality and climate change. And traditionally, these have been entirely separate," he says...

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