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Pope Francis: The Poor and Climate Change
With a puff of white smoke, the world was greeted this week with the announcement of a new pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentine Cardinal now known as Pope Francis, named after the patron saint of the poor St. Francis of Assisi.The new pontiff’...
Chasing Ice in a Warming World
Many believe “Chasing Ice,” the powerful climate change film nominated for an Oscar for its haunting original song, "Before My Time," should have made the cut for Best Documentary Feature too. But if you haven’t seen...
Oil Platform Fire Sends Shockwaves through Gulf on Heels of Record BP Fines
An oil platform explosion and fire today near the site of the nation’s greatest offshore oil spill in history—BP’s Deepwater Horizon—sent shivers up the spines of many Gulf residents as the U.S. Coast Guard reported that 11 crewmembers were...
In the Gulf's Rising Tide, Hurricane Sandy Strikes a Familiar Chord
Rocky Kistner, Communications Associate, Washington, DCDown in the Louisiana bayou, people have first-hand knowledge of the kind of suffering a maelstrom like Superstorm Sandy brings. After the titanic tempest slammed into ...
Dwindling Arctic Ice Signals a Clear Need for Change
In Hollywood’s latest cetacean love-fest, Big Miracle, three gray whales are trapped in the encroaching Arctic ice of the Chukchi Sea, soon to be part of a heroic rescue attempt by the local indigenous community, a Greenpeace activist (...
Oil and Water Create an Uncertain Future in the Southern Wild
Cajun fishing and hunting guide Ryan Lambert has weathered his share of storms over the years. He rebuilt his house and lodge deep in the Louisiana bayou seven years ago after Katrina rampaged across the area like a wild boar through roseau cane....
In a Kansas Corn Field, Drought Points to the Need for Climate Solutions
Last month, I spent a week traveling with my NRDC colleague Bob Deans through the drought-decimated corn and wheat fields of Colorado and Kansas, talking to farmers knocked flat by one of the hottest summers ever. This is ground zero for one of...
In Canada's Tar Sands, a Dante's Hell Threatens People Nearby and Across the Globe
In Canada's western province of Alberta, Melina Laboucan-Massimo’s community—the Lubicon Lake Nation—has endured a withering toxic tar sands oil assault, an Armageddon against nature few Americans are fully aware of. Here in the once pristine...
Keystone 1 Accident; A Geyser of Tar Sands Oil Just Like the Movies
On an early morning in May 2011, North Dakota farmer Bob Banderet was walking out of his farm house with his daughter to check on some calves when off in the distance they noticed something billowing into the air “like a geyser.” It didn’t...
Fossil Fuel Subsidies: the Answer Lies in the Gulf
This week, much of the globe’s attention is focused on the United Nation’s Rio +20 Earth Summit, where thousands of international delegates and NGO representatives are gathering to hammer out solutions to an increasingly stressed out, warmed-up...
Otero Mesa; Fight Over Rare Earths Threatens a Desert Bio-Gem
An essential mineral ingredient used in a variety of electronics from cell phones to smart bombs could be a death knell for a pristine part of a wild New Mexico desert grassland coveted by environmentalists—and considered sacred to Native Americans....
Report Shows Keystone Tar Sands Pipeline Will Raise Gas Prices and Cut Midwest Oil Supplies
Despite all the industry hype over jobs and purported energy security benefits from building the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline—benefits a Brooklyn bridge-builder could propose—a new report shows the mammoth ...
