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Tag Archives: environment
Drill Baby Drill
“Louisiana produces 30 percent to 40 percent of the nation’s oil and gas off our coast. It is certainly good for our economy … It is also good for the nation…” That was Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal in 2006 speaking about allowing offshore oil drilling. Today his state is preparing for one of the worst environmental disasters to hit the US in over 20 years. On April 20th an explosion on an exploratory drill rig killed eleven workers and caused the rig to sink into the Gulf of Mexico. The accident exposed an open wellhead that experts estimate is leaking up to five thousand barrels of oil per day. The oil spill is expected to hit land at some point … More >>
Tagged Bobby Jindal, environment, oil spill
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Hydrofracking Held-Up
Today the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has announced that drilling in the New York City or the Skaneateles Lake watersheds “will require a case-by-case environmental review process to establish whether appropriate measures to mitigate potential impacts can be developed.” As the Times points out, this means that “it highly unlikely that any drilling will be done in the Catskills watershed that supplies drinking water to New York City.” It may come as a surprise, but New York City uses unfiltered drinking water, so the prospect of “hydraulic fracturing, which involves blasting water mixed with chemicals into rock at high pressure to extract the gas” was particularly disconcerting in our upstate water supplies.
Happy Earth Day
Today is Earth Day. Yay Earth! MYD is having our celebration this Monday. Join us as we celebrate past victories, like cleaner air and cleaner water for Americans, and help plan future ones, like containing carbon emissions. I thought I would also share some of the better things I read today on Earth Day. Slate’s The Green Lantern has an article on what to really focus on to make the world a better place environmentally: Arnold Tukker of the Dutch research organization TNO laid out his top recommendations thusly: Insulate your home, choose energy-efficient appliances, drive a fuel-efficient car (if you must drive at all), moderate your meat and dairy consumption, eat what’s in season, and avoid food that’s been … More >>
[Un]Sustainable Living
More so than other constituent groups, young people must grapple with the future cost of the actions we take today. The long-term fiscal consequences of the bailout have been center-stage of late (a topic for a future post), but more and more people are saying the problems run far deeper. Dr. Joe Romm, a physicist and climate expert of the “indispensable blog” ClimateProgress, argues the way we are currently raping and pillaging the environment is nothing less than a massive Ponzi scheme, for which the young and future generations will foot the bill: What exactly is a Ponzi scheme? Wikipedia has a good entry: A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to investors from their own … More >>
Tagged environment, myd
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