pollution

Red Alert: Only One Earth

June 6, 2021 The Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Biodiversity, climate crisis, Environment, pollution

Ecosystem degradation is accelerated by capitalism, which intensifies pollution and waste, deforestation, land-use change and exploitation, and carbon-driven energy systems. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report, Climate Change and Land (January 2020), notes that only 15% of known wetlands remain, most having been degraded beyond the possibility of recovery. In 2020, the UNEP documented that, from 2014 to 2017, coral reefs suffered from the longest severe bleaching event on record. Coral reefs are projected to decline dramatically as temperatures rise; if global warming rises to 1.5°C, only 10-30% of reefs will remain, and if global warming rises to 2°C, then less than 1% of reefs will remain.

We Hug The Trees Because The Trees Have No Voice

June 5, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Biodiversity, Climate Change, Environment, pollution

At the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, the delegates decided to hold an annual World Environment Day. In 1974, the UN urged the world to celebrate that day on 5 June with the slogan ‘Only One Earth’; this year, the theme is ‘Ecosystem Restoration’, emphasising how the capitalist system has eroded the earth’s capacity to sustain life. The Global Footprint Network reports that we do not live on one Earth, but on 1.6 Earths. We live on more than one Earth because, by encroaching and destroying biodiversity, degrading land, and polluting the air and water, we are cannibalising the planet. This newsletter contains a Red Alert from Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research on the environmental catastrophe that befalls us. Several key scientists have contributed to it. It can be read below and downloaded as a PDF print out here; we hope that you will circulate it widely.

New Report: Climate Harms To Health Are Widespread And Costly

May 21, 2021 Vijay Limaye, NRDC. Educate! Climate Change, Environmental Justice, Health Care, pollution

A new report NRDC published with partner groups today spotlights the enormous, often overlooked, and inequitable health and economic costs of climate change and air pollution from burning fossil fuels on the United States. This report, produced by the Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health, Wisconsin Health Professionals for Climate Action, and NRDC focuses on the frequently ignored but profound public health problems and costs linked to the climate crisis.

Our Biggest Jails Are Frontline Environmental Justice Communities

May 9, 2021 Adam Mahoney, Grist. Educate! Environmental Justice, health, pollution, Prisons

For more than half a century, 441 Bauchet Street has been the address where Los Angeles’ most stark social and environmental inequalities converge. It’s the location of L.A.’s Men’s Central Jail, the largest facility in the most populated county jail system in the country. On any given day, about 5,000 people are incarcerated there. A block south from the jail is the 101 freeway, one of the most traveled highways in America, which generates dangerous levels of air pollution linked to a slew of birth defects. A block east is the L.A. River, home to at least 20 different pollutants, from feces to oil, at levels that violate federal standards. Another 100 yards east is the SP Railyard and Union Pacific Transportation Center, which operate at all hours, receiving big rig diesel trucks that spew an estimated 40 tons of particulate matter into the air annually.

Diane Wilson In Hunger Strike To Protect Matagorda Bay

May 6, 2021 Stephanie Thomas, Public Citizen. Resist! Oil and Gas, Oil exports, pollution, Texas

Legendary environmenal activist Diane Wilson has been called “an unreasonable woman.” As a shrimper, Diane learned firsthand about tremendous pollution damaging the waters near her hometown of Port Lavaca and fought to defend the Bay from Formosa and Alcoa, major chemical companies. In 2019, Diane was plaintiff to a court case brought against Formosa on account of the shocking amount of plastic pollution – called nurdles – that Diane found littered around the Bay. That case resulted in a $50 million settlement against the company that is being used for environmental projects. Now, as of May 5th, Diane is on Day 29 of a hunger strike protesting the dredging of the Matagorda Ship Channel, a channel first dredged in the 1960s to provide a means for ships to travel between the Gulf of Mexico and the industry along Lavaca Bay.

US Army Corps Of Engineers Permit Big Oil To Dredge Mercury-Contaminated Matagorda Bay

April 30, 2021 Ann Wright, Popular Resistance. Resist! Fossil Fuels, Hunger Strike, pollution, Texas

Texas shrimper, fisherwoman and internationally known environmentalist Diane Wilson is on Day 22 of her hunger strike to gain national solidarity and publicity for pressure on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to rescind its permit for big oil to dredge a channel in mercury laden Matagorda Bay, Texas. The dredged channel would allow massive oil tankers into the bay to take on crude oil that will be exported from the U.S. “I am risking my life to stop the reckless destruction of my community. Oil and gas export terminals like the project I am fighting pollute our air, water, and climate — only to pad the pockets of fossil fuel CEOs,” said Diane Wilson. “The Biden Administration needs to stop the dredging and stop oil and gas exports.”

72-Year-Old Fisher Hunger Strikes For Crude Oil Export Ban

April 24, 2021 Candice Bernd, Truthout. Resist! Hunger Strike, Oil Export, pollution, Texas

Texas - Seventy-two-year-old, fourth-generation retired shrimper Diane Wilson has been without food for 16 days. Her 1995 red Chevy, nicknamed “Rosie,” has become a mobile campsite, and each morning she posts up on a causeway at the waterfront of Texas’ Lavaca Bay, expending just enough energy to switch out a sign displaying the number of days she’s been on hunger strike and drape a banner off the side of the truck blaring the message: “STOP THE DREDGING. STOP OIL EXPORT.” She hopes her hunger strike will draw enough attention to pressure the Biden administration stop Houston-based oil and gas firm Max Midstream’s plans to invest $360 million to deepen and widen the Matagorda Ship Channel by 2023.

Despite Climate Commitments, Health Concerns, States Approve Fuel Tanks

April 21, 2021 Ingrid Lobet, Capital and Main. Educate! California, Environmental racism, Oil and Gas, pollution

Magali Sanchez-Hall, usually in motion, pauses for a moment on the sidewalk to gaze through a chain-link fence at the massive new construction project: tanks shaped like giant tuna fish cans that will store crude oil. The Los Angeles refinery has been her troublesome neighbor for a quarter of a century, but she finds this latest turn particularly perplexing. “Right now, we are supposed to be moving to clean energy,” she says. Sanchez-Hall, 50, raised her children here before getting a master’s degree in public policy. When Tesoro, now Marathon Petroleum Corp., first proposed the new tanks in 2016, she opposed them, citing sickening fumes from the ones already there.

We Sampled Tap Water Across The US

April 6, 2021 Ryan Felton, Lisa Gill and Lewis Kendall, Consumer Reports/The Guardian. Educate! health, pollution, United States, Water

In Connecticut, a condo had lead in its drinking water at levels more than double what the federal government deems acceptable. At a church in North Carolina, the water was contaminated with extremely high levels of potentially toxic PFAS chemicals (a group of compounds found in hundreds of household products). The water flowing into a Texas home had both – and concerning amounts of arsenic too. All three were among locations that had water tested as part of a nine-month investigation by Consumer Reports (CR) and the Guardian into the US’s drinking water. Since the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972, access to safe water for all Americans has been a US government goal.

Report: Plastic Pollution Is A Social Justice Issue

April 5, 2021 Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. Educate! Environment, health, Plastic, pollution

Plastic pollution isn't just a threat to non-human life like turtles and whales. It's also a major environmental justice problem. That's the conclusion of a new report released Tuesday from the UN Environment Program and ocean justice non-profit Azul, titled Neglected: Environmental Justice Impacts of Plastic Pollution. "Plastic pollution is a social justice issue," report coauthor and Azul founder and executive director Marce Gutiérrez-Graudiņš said in a press release. "Current efforts, limited to managing and decreasing plastic pollution, are inadequate to address the whole scope of problems plastic creates, especially the disparate impacts on communities affected by the harmful effects of plastic at every point from production to waste."

Highlighting The Too-Often Invisible Labor Of Mothers, Who Protect Us And Lead Us

March 13, 2021 Veronica Coptis, Coalfield Justice. Resist! Children, Fracking, health, pollution

This week two major publications were released that highlight public health impacts on people living next to oil and gas operations. The Environmental Health News released their investigation looking at how chemicals associated with oil and gas are present at levels 90 times higher than the average in families’ urine, including samples from children. The New Yorker published “When the Kids Started Getting Sick” by Eliza Griswold, a deep dive on the increase in rare bone cancers in the region. These articles highlight the reality of so many in our communities, and because they reflect that lived reality, they hit home. For that reason, this blog goes a bit beyond simply providing information.

US Military Exposed 600,000 To Toxins In Japan And Micronesia

March 12, 2021 John Reinsch, Truthout. Educate! Environmental Destruction, pollution, US Foreign Bases, US Foreign Policy

Most Americans trust the military; a 2020 poll found 72 percent with “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in that institution, edged out only by small business. Many were likely picturing enlisted persons, but their trust often extends to the leadership, both uniformed and civilian. However, those making life-and-death decisions for both U.S. troops and people of other countries — even in the absence of war — deserve our serious scrutiny. A new book, Poisoning the Pacific, examines the military’s long role in the environmental degradation of East Asia and Pacific islands, severely impacting the health of the region’s people and U.S. personnel stationed there. Author Jon Mitchell is a Tokyo-based journalist, and much of his book focuses on Japan, especially its southernmost prefecture of Okinawa.

Investigation Into Chemical Exposure From Fracking Provokes Call For Rapid Phaseout

March 5, 2021 Jessica Corbett, Commondreams. Educate! Fracking, health, Pennsylvania, pollution

"While financial analysts, policymakers, and massive corporations squabble over the finer points of the fracking debate, families living amidst the wells day in and day out live in constant fear about what the industry might cost them—if they had another child, would they need to worry about birth defects? Are these exposures increasing their kids' cancer risk? Would it be safer to move to a place far away from all of this, even if it would also mean being far from their extended families, friends, and communities? And even if they could move, how far would they have to go to feel safe?" Those are just some of the questions facing the western Pennsylvania families featured in a report published Monday by Environmental Health News (EHN), a publication of the nonprofit Environmental Health Sciences. Five families from the region participated in a pilot study on the chemicals commonly found in emissions from fracking sites.

Mohawk Families Being Sickened By New Dump

December 27, 2020 Christopher Curtis, Ricochet Media. Educate! Canada, health, Indigenous Rights, pollution

Quebec - What would you do if you thought you were being poisoned? What if, for the past year, a rancid smell woke you up in the dead of night and sent you rushing to the bathroom so you didn’t cough blood onto your sheets? What if you had to tell your grandkids not to play in the yard because, when the smell comes, they get migraines and a dull ache in their legs? Or each time you turn on the washing machine, your house smells like raw sewage? What if you spent your whole life in the land of your ancestors and then, one day, an environmental disaster befell that land? And since that disaster, you have noticed your breathing is laboured and your water leaves a slimy film on your skin.

The Push For Nuclear Power In Space

December 17, 2020 Karl Grossman, OpEd News. Educate! Elon Musk, Nuclear Power, pollution, Space

Last week a SpaceX rocket exploded in a fireball at the SpaceX site in Texas. "Fortunately," reported Lester Holt on NBC Nightly News, "no one was aboard." But what if nuclear materials had been aboard? The nuclear space issue is one I got into 35 years ago when I learned from reading a U.S. Department of Energy news letter about two space shuttles, one the Challenger which was to be launched the following year with 24.2 pounds of plutonium aboard. The plutonium the shuttles were to carry aloft in 1986 was to be used as fuel in radioisotope thermoelectric generators RTGs that were to provide a small amount of electric power for instruments on space probes to be released from the shuttles once the shuttles achieved orbit.

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