Gary Judson had just been removed from his shackles when they slapped the handcuffs on him. The 72-year-old Methodist minister had chained himself to the fence surrounding a compressor station — part of the critical infrastructure associated with hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking — a stone’s throw from Seneca Lake in upstate New York. The sheriff and his deputies freed him only to arrest him for trespassing.

“They don’t have the right to do this — to put the lake in jeopardy. We’ll all end up paying for their mess.”

Aluminum: The most abundant metal on earth. And it has no natural, biological purpose. But over the past 100 years aluminum has become a necessity for modern life. We use aluminum in industry, packaging, medicine, and cosmetics. But from its mining through its manufacture to its use, it is also an incredibly destructive metal. It’s a substance that is used to produce allergies in lab animals, and aluminum’s appearance in drinking water is linked to Alzheimer’s disease and increased cancer rates.

A number of recent written pieces have reflected actual interest in doing something about abrupt climate change. Abrupt climate change is now stalling the gulf stream. Barack Obama mentioned climate change in his recent State of the Union speech. Canada dumps its Kyoto targets, but perhaps Barbara Boxer and Bernie Sanders are now interested in climate change legislation. “John Crapper” suggests we ought to declare war on fossil fuel. Agathena tells us more about Canadian tar sands.

Generally speaking, none of the suggested solutions to have reached mainstream respectability does what it takes.

It was a relief to hear more than a passing reference to climate change in President Obama’s State of the Union Speech, including promises of more support for wind and solar power. But the oil industry heard nothing to even cause even a smidgen of concern.

In late November, while other parts of New Jersey were recovering from the superstorm, the quiet town of Paulsboro was blindsided by a very unnatural disaster. A train derailed while crossing a local bridge, sending freight cars tumbling into the water below and releasing a toxic swirl of the flammable gas known as vinyl chloride, used to make PVC plastics. In the following days, chaos ensued as residents hurriedly evacuated. Authorities struggled to manage the emergency respons, leaving people confused and frustrated by a lack of official communicationabout hazards.

Though the derailment came as a shock to residents, this was an accident waiting to happen.

A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court, voting 2-1 on partisan lines, has struck down the EPA’s “good neighbor” air pollution rule, which attempted to protect Eastern states from upwind pollution from Midwest and Southern states via tougher pollution laws. A federal appeals court Tuesday struck down a key Obama administration air pollution rule [...]

While environmental justice campaigns have historically focused on localized pollution issues, the National Healthy Nail & Beauty Salon Alliance organizes around the intersection of workplace environmental health and racial and economic justice. According to the Alliance’s analysis, the hazards endemic to the nail salon industry are stratified by ethnicity and gender: roughly four in ten workers are Asian immigrants, many of them of childbearing age, poor, uninsured and with limited English-speaking ability. And they are assaulted daily by invisible threats.

The EPA today proposed tougher standards for soot pollution today, in a move required by the courts, which they say 99% of all communities can meet without further action.

The business/Republican reaction is predictable, but out of control compared to the actual announcement.

Silly Democrat! Only Republicans are allowed to crucify people!

It’s painfully ironic that Dagwood Bumstead finally got around to celebrating Earth Day today, by napping instead of mowing the lawn, at the same time Earth Day became more of a wake than anything to celebrate. Thanks to our brain-dead media and bought-off politicians in both parties, fewer Americans than at any time since the 1970′s give a tinker’s damn whether or not our planet turns into an uninhabitable, sweltering, toxic cesspool.