Environment and Health
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...
Powered by Pollution
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...
Will This Documentary Change Everything?
Writer Naomi Klein and her filmmaker husband Avi Lewis lucked out with the release of their new documentary, This Changes Everything. This film about why humanity must kick our fossil-fuel habit before it wrecks the planet arrived at an ideal time. For one thing,...
A Perfect Portrait of Corporate Crime
If a picture is worth 1,000 words, here's one worth a thousand times that. It's a shot of three Volkswagen board members, gathered for a press conference to announce the resignation of Martin Winterkorn. VW's disgraced CEO was forced out after the auto giant was...
Francis Gets Served the House Specialty
With his gentle grace, disarming humility, and penchant for saying “God bless America” like he means it, Pope Francis appeared to sweep Washington off its feet. Cheering throngs accompanied his every move. The powerful and powerless alike made a fuss. Take Senator...
The GOP’s Can’t-Do Attitude
The second Republican presidential debate shed light on why the GOP doesn’t want to do anything about climate change. Senator Marco Rubio led the way, misconstruing the shift toward green energy — which even Royal Dutch Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden says is in...
