Imagine for a minute that for generations, you and your family lived on ancestral lands abundant with wildlife and a beautiful river running through it. Like every youngster born in your family, one of your elders took you out to the river and patiently taught you how to swim and fish in the warm summer […]
As Alberta Premier Alison Redford heads to Washington D.C. this week to push U.S. officials on the Keystone XL project, a coalition of Canadian environmental groups wrote a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry asking him to consider the impacts of tar sands production on human health and the environment, as well as the failures by […]
By Andy Rowell Yesterday was the eighteen anniversary of the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa. The charismatic, pipe-smoking activist was murdered by the brutal military junta for his campaign against Shell in the Niger Delta. Although Shell has always vehemently denied any collusion in Saro-Wisa’s death, the company cannot escape the fact that it directly and indirectly […]
The first prophetic sign to follow CNN’s irrelevant Pandora’s Promise is this: the Dallas-based Luminant Power Company has cancelled two mammoth reactors. Pandora’s box score for atomic America 2013 is five announced early reactor closures, nine project cancellations and six ditched uprates. Today, 100 U.S. reactors operate where 1,000 were once promised. New orders are […]
By Denise Robbins CNN aired the pro-nuclear power film Pandora’s Promise last night, which propagated three common myths about nuclear power: it suggested the environmental movement’s “scare tactics” are what has inhibited nuclear power, claimed nuclear power is cheaper than renewables and downplayed complications from nuclear waste. This led to a generally one-sided story, which has led to criticism from […]
A scary thing happened on Halloween near Hinton, Alberta. Canada had what may be the largest coal slurry spill in its history when a dam failed at the Obed Mountain coal mine and 264 million gallons (1 billion litres) of waste water contaminated at least 25 kilometers of the Athabasca river. Ten municipalities located downstream […]
By Dale Bryk Four distinguished atmospheric scientists, including Dr. James Hansen, have written an open letter encouraging those “opposed to nuclear power” to rethink their position in light of the urgent need to fight dangerous climate change. Hansen and his coauthors are right to underscore the dangers of climate disruption from the global addiction to fossil […]
By Daniel J. Weiss and Tiffany Germain Once again, it’s been a good quarter for Big Oil. The big five oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell—reported $23 billion in combined profits for their third quarter of 2013. That’s $175,000 per minute. Together, these five companies earn more in one minute than 95 percent of Americans earn in […]
By Athena Ballesteros U.S. public financing for overseas coal-fired power is likely coming to an end. That’s the clear signal from the U.S. Department of Treasury’s announcement on Tuesday. The Treasury Department provided new guidance for multi-lateral development banks’ (MDBs) financing of coal-fired power. These investments will now need to meet the same greenhouse gas requirements […]