Environment and Health

How to Be a Merry Environmentalist
Here's something to consider this holiday season: Stop sending greeting cards. I know this sounds like a tip from the Grinch, but this well-meaning tradition causes very real environmental consequences. Americans mail over 1.6 billion holiday cards to each other each...

What’s Next after Kayaktivism in Oregon
Portland Mayor Charlie Hales recently took a step no other U.S. mayor in our country — and perhaps the world — has yet taken: He submitted a resolution to the city council calling for an end to all new fossil fuel infrastructure in the city. After listening to...

Indonesia on Fire
Students at the vocational high school in Pontianak, Indonesia always start their week with a ritual that's familiar to many American students: a flag-raising ceremony. They line up in the central courtyard to sing the national anthem and pledge their allegiance....

Who Can Follow This Climate Leader?
Remember that scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy hits a fork in the Yellow Brick Road? As she stands there stumped, a friendly character who will accompany her to the Emerald Palace pipes up. “Pardon me, that way is a very nice way,” the Scarecrow advises as he...

Will This Lord of the Manor Get Locked Up?
Don Blankenship had it all. The West Virginia coal baron had personal wealth, absolute control over his workers, and unmatched political power that extended through every branch of state government — and deep into the back rooms of Washington policymakers. In the...

How a Pipeline Becomes a Trophy

Big Oil Can’t Go On Like This
Ensuring that our planet remains hospitable requires leaving about three-quarters of all oil, gas, and coal deposits underground or beneath the sea floor. And forgoing all those fossil fuels to avert a climate catastrophe means that loads of companies need to change...

Trying a Fossil Fiend
Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders wants the Justice Department to investigate and potentially prosecute ExxonMobil for corporate fraud. The Vermont senator is alarmed by reports that the energy giant spread doubt about climate change despite knowing since 1977 that...

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Taking out the Trash Burners
Having scored one big victory for jobs and the environment, a group of Baltimore activists is trying to take things to the next level. Curtis Bay, their heavily polluted Baltimore neighborhood, had been bracing for a $1 billion garbage incinerator that would have...