environment

Delaware River Basin Commission Votes to Ban Fracking in Historic Victory

Delaware River Basin Commission Votes to Ban Fracking in Historic Victory

In a historic move, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) voted Thursday to ban hydraulic fracking in the region. The ban was supported by all four basin states — New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New York — putting a permanent end to hydraulic fracking for natural gas along the 13,539-square-mile basin, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. […]

Join our newsletter

The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!

    Dutch Court Orders Shell Oil to Pay for Harm Done to Nigerian Farmers

    Dutch Court Orders Shell Oil to Pay for Harm Done to Nigerian Farmers

    By Andrea Germanos Global environmental justice campaigners heralded a Dutch court’s ruling Friday that Royal Dutch Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary must pay punitive restitution to Nigerian villages for oil spill contamination that brought death, illness, and destruction to Nigerian farmers and communities. “After 13 years, justice!” tweeted Friends of the Earth Europe. The legal effort seeking […]

    Restoring Our Water Systems Should Be Top Priority for Biden Administration

    Restoring Our Water Systems Should Be Top Priority for Biden Administration

    By Katy Neusteter The Biden-Harris transition team identified COVID-19, economic recovery, racial equity and climate change as its top priorities. Rivers are the through-line linking all of them. The fact is, healthy rivers can no longer be separated into the “nice-to-have” column of environmental progress. Rivers and streams provide more than 60 percent of our […]

    A Push for Answers About the Environmental Causes of Child Cancer

    A Push for Answers About the Environmental Causes of Child Cancer

    By Jennifer Sass, Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, Dr. Philip J. Landrigan and Simon Strong “Prevention is the cure for child/teen cancer.” This is the welcoming statement on a website called ‘TheReasonsWhy.Us‘, where families affected by childhood cancers can sign up for a landmark new study into the potential environmental causes. The study is a joint project […]

    How a Class on Zero Waste Became So Much More

    How a Class on Zero Waste Became So Much More

    By Sage Lenier Sage Lenier, an environmental activist and graduate from UC Berkeley, created a wildly popular course at her university dedicated to sustainable solutions and circular systems thinking against the broader backdrop of environmental justice. In Spring 2020, the course enrolled more than 300 students eager to learn how they can drive the shift […]

    E-Waste Management Is Not Keeping Pace With Consumer Electronics

    E-Waste Management Is Not Keeping Pace With Consumer Electronics

    By Callie Babbitt and Shahana Althaf It’s hard to imagine navigating modern life without a mobile phone in hand. Computers, tablets and smartphones have transformed how we communicate, work, learn, share news and entertain ourselves. They became even more essential when the COVID-19 pandemic moved classes, meetings and social connections online. But few people realize […]

    It’s Time to Rethink What We Eat, Annual Meat Consumption Report Argues

    It’s Time to Rethink What We Eat, Annual Meat Consumption Report Argues

    “Industrial meat production is not only responsible for precarious working conditions, it also pushes people off their land, leads to deforestation, biodiversity loss and the use of pesticides — and is also one of the main drivers of the climate crisis.” Such were the words of Barbara Unmüssig of green think tank, the Heinrich Böll […]

    Six Ways Trump Has Attacked the Environment During the Holidays

    Six Ways Trump Has Attacked the Environment During the Holidays

    By Tara Lohan This holiday season just about everything was different. Vacations were postponed. Parties and family get-togethers were canceled or moved online as folks hunkered down at the request of public-health officials. But one thing continued as usual: President Trump’s attacks on the environment. In the weeks following the Nov. 3 election, Trump’s team […]

    Local Conservation of a National Wild and Scenic River

    Local Conservation of a National Wild and Scenic River

    By Joe Timmerman Few leaves are still falling off trees and down the ever-running water of the National Wild and Scenic Little Miami River, where they float through five counties and 111 miles of Southwest Ohio, into the Ohio River and toward the Mississippi before eventually finding their way into the Gulf of Mexico. Today, […]