Features

Europe restricts pesticides blamed for bee deaths

Apr 292013

Scientific evidence mounts that neonictinoid toxins devastate hives.

from PANNA, Pesticide Action Network North America

WASHINGTON DC, April 29, 2013 — In a historic vote earlier today, the European Union created continent-wide restrictions on the use of bee-harming pesticides. Despite pesticide industry influence, a majority of countries voted to place a two year restriction on three neonicotinoid products linked to a wide-range of harms to honey bees, namely: clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam.

BP dumps wind power, backpedals on green promises

Apr 292013

Features

Oil giant responsible for 2010 Gulf blowout retrenches in fossil fuels.

by Stephen Leahy

BP’s decision comes as the renewable sector reaches new heights. Renewable energy sources — water, wind, solar, biomass — account for nearly 15 percent of US electrical generation. Only one new coal power plant has been built in recent years and another 150 planned coal plants have been cancelled.
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West, Texas explosion the price of our fertilizer addiction

Apr 292013

Features

Artificial fertilizers carry major environmental risks, as well as serious workplace hazards.

by Jill Richardson

My heart aches for the people of West, Texas, the tiny town where a fertilizer plant recently blew up. Many of the folks who perished in the blast were heroic volunteer firefighters who ran into danger instead of away from it. With 14 dead and 200 injured, and a nearby nursing home, school, and apartment complex either badly damaged or destroyed, West’s brave citizens have hard work ahead.

High anxiety levels lead to high violence rates

Apr 252013

Features

Fewer and fewer of us feel a sense of belonging.

by Frances Moore Lappé

In his book Violence, psychologist James Gilligan asked a Massachusetts prison inmate, “What do you want so badly that you would sacrifice everything in order to get it?” The inmate declared, “Pride. Dignity. Self-esteem… And I’ll kill every motherfucker in that cell block if I have to in order to get it.”

Or, as another inmate said, “I’ve got to have my self-respect, and I’ve declared war on the whole world till I get it.”

Ontario to save Experimental Lakes Area

Apr 252013

Features

Harperites tried to terminate world-renowned research station.

by Stephen Leahy

Canada's crown jewel of environmental research may yet survive the Harper government. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne announced yesterday the province would work with Winnipeg's International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) to keep the world-renowned Experimental Lakes Area open. The 45-year-old freshwater research facility in northern Ontario considered unique in the world was closed March 31over protests from the scientific community and the public.

Losing CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency

Apr 222013

Features

The Harper government commercializes international development.

by Dr Caroline Shenaz Hossein

In the 2013 Federal budget, Minister Jim Flaherty announced that activities currently carried out by CIDA (the Canadian International Development Agency) will now be under Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), a ministry focused on political relations and trade. The new department will be called Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFTD).

Prime Minister Harper’s adding the “D” for “development” is gimmicky. It is unclear whether this new agency will support alternative models from the so-called "third sector," civil society, made up of an array of organizations such as non-profits, cooperatives, self-help groups, microfinance institutions, women’s associations, faith-based organizations and advocacy organizations looking at business and social issues in new ways.

BP and the Gulf of Mexico

Apr 212013

Features

Third anniversary of catastrophe brings big PR push, aggressive courtroom denials.

by Allison Fisher, Outreach Director, Public Citizen’s Energy Program

WASHINGTON DC, April 19, 2013 — On the third anniversary of the BP oil disaster, the oil giant wants people to believe that no company has done more to respond in the wake of an industrial accident than BP.
That is the story BP wants told.
Continue reading »

Trying to understand the Tsarnaev brothers

Apr 212013

Features

National culture, not Muslim religion, encourages young Chechen men to violence.

by Metta Spencer

My knowledgeable friend Julia Kalinina, a Russian journalist who covered the first war in Chechnya, says she does not believe that the Tsarnaev brothers had any contact with terrorist groups, but rather that they were motivated to avenge a recent US insult to Ramam Kadyrov, the head of Chechnya.

ExxonMobil’s Mayflower mess

Apr 182013

Features

Tar sands crude is both more toxic and much harder to clean up than ordinary oil.

by Michael Brune

Several weeks after ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline gushed at least 500,000 gallons of tar sands crude and water into the Arkansas community of Mayflower, many of the evacuated families still can’t return to their homes.

Sierra Club organizer Glen Hooks, who grew up about 20 miles southeast of this disaster site, recently attended a meeting for the displaced families at Mayflower High School. “I had to really stare down some ExxonMobil goons who told me to leave because it was a private meeting,” he said. “I politely explained that it was a meeting in a public building about a public subject with numerous public officials in attendance, and that I was planning to stay.”

Energy potential without limit

Apr 182013

Features

After record 2012, world wind power set to top 300,000 megawatts in 2013.

by J Matthew Roney

Even amid policy uncertainty in major wind power markets, wind developers still managed to set a new record for installations in 2012, with 44,000 megawatts of new wind capacity worldwide. With total capacity exceeding 280,000 megawatts, wind farms generate carbon-free electricity in more than 80 countries, 24 of which have at least 1,000 megawatts. At the European level of consumption, the world’s operating wind turbines could satisfy the residential electricity needs of 450 million people.

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