insights

Wash U Sit-In Enters Historic 3rd Week: Peabody Moment of Truth Arrives

Wash U Sit-In Enters Historic 3rd Week: Peabody Moment of Truth Arrives

In an emerging public relations nightmare for Washington University officials, the sit-in against Peabody Energy ties entered a historic third week, as students continued to press demands after a faltering statement released yesterday by Chancellor Mark Wrighton. “We want to make it clear that we are not satisfied with this statement,” the Wash U Students Against Peabody countered. “We plan to […]

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    Windmills are Beautiful

    Windmills are Beautiful

    I have a cabin on Quadra Island off the British Columbia coast that’s as close to my heart as you can imagine. From my porch you can see clear across the waters of Georgia Strait to the snowy peaks of the rugged Coast Mountains. It’s one of the most beautiful views I have seen. And […]

    How Ecological Farming Builds Resilience to Climate Change

    How Ecological Farming Builds Resilience to Climate Change

    Last week, I joined a panel at the Global Agribusiness Forum in São Paolo (Brazil) to talk about the impacts of climate change on agriculture and food production. You might be surprised that Greenpeace was at an agribusiness conference. The room was full of agri-business people, who are not the crowd we normally engage with; they are […]

    Two Arrested Protesting Strip Mine as Community Battles World’s Largest Coal Company

    Two Arrested Protesting Strip Mine as Community Battles World’s Largest Coal Company

    While Peabody Energy may have hired a notorious public relations firm to hawk its international ad campaign, a village trustee and her rural farming community have exposed the devastating legacy of the world’s largest coal company near its historic Illinois beginnings. Meet Judy Kellen and the courageous community of Rocky Branch in Saline County, IL, whose battle to save their […]

    25 Years After Exxon Valdez: ‘It’s Worse Than We Thought’

    25 Years After Exxon Valdez: ‘It’s Worse Than We Thought’

    When it comes to oil spills, there’s no substitute for prevention. The trouble is, 25 years after the Exxon Valdez spill fouled Alaska’s Prince William Sound and four years after the horrific events in the Gulf brought on by the Deepwater Horizon blowout, we can’t seem to stop spewing oil into our waterways. This NPR […]

    Two College Students Show How to Grow Solutions

    Two College Students Show How to Grow Solutions

    People always ask me how I stay optimistic in the face of so much bad news about the environment. Easy: I stop and look around me at all the people who are working to make the situation better. Two of those people are college students Alex Freid and Amira Odeh. Amira Odeh fosters sustainable water consumption […]

    Full Planet, Empty Plates: The Geopolitics of Food Scarcity

    Full Planet, Empty Plates: The Geopolitics of Food Scarcity

    As food supplies have tightened, a new geopolitics of food has emerged—a world in which the global competition for land and water is intensifying and each country is fending for itself. We cannot claim that we are unaware of the trends that are undermining our food supply and thus our civilization. We know what we need to […]

    No More Excuses: Duke Energy, Clean Up Your Toxic Ash Holes

    No More Excuses: Duke Energy, Clean Up Your Toxic Ash Holes

    For four years, Waterkeeper Alliance and our North Carolina Riverkeepers have been locked in a pitched battle with Duke Energy to force the irresponsible company to clean up its dangerous, illegally polluting ash ponds which we call toxic ash holes. In 2009, I traveled to Raleigh to meet with the Aquifer Protection Section of the North Carolina […]

    How the GDP Measures Everything ‘Except That Which Makes Life Worthwhile’

    How the GDP Measures Everything ‘Except That Which Makes Life Worthwhile’

    Governments, media and much of the public are preoccupied with the economy. That means demands such as those for recognition of First Nations treaty rights and environmental protection are often seen as impediments to the goal of maintaining economic growth. The gross domestic product has become a sacred indicator of well-being. Ask corporate CEOs and […]