Environment

Environment, Labor March 27, 2013

West Virginia’s Future Grim as Their Past Is Demolished

The Huffington Post March 26, 2013 by Pat LaMarche According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) between 2006 and 2011, domestic coal consumption has decreased by about 10 percent but coal exports have more than doubled. Consumption isn’t the only thing that’s down, so is production. What that means is that for a number of reasons — including Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine disaster which killed 29 miners less than three years ago — conventional deep well mining in on the decline. Consequently, surface mining aka mountain top removal is up, amounting to nearly 50% of the total…

Environment, Green Party, National Politics January 24, 2013

The Precautionary Principle

by Ron Forthofer  The Daily Camera January 20, 2013 Here it is 2013 and the United States still refuses, with a few exceptions, to adopt the precautionary principle, a key tool used to protect the public from potentially dangerous products, policies or actions. The essence of this principle is that if there are reasonable grounds for concern about the safety of some product or action, its safety must be scientifically established before the product is released or the action taken. The precautionary principle reflects the idea that “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.” A key…

Climate Change, Environment, Green Party, National Politics January 22, 2013

Green Party of New York State comments on Hydrofracking

  On January 9, 2,000+ fracktivists rallied for a fracking ban outside Cuomo’s State of the State address. The next day, January 10 the Assembly Environmental Conservation committee heard 11 hours of testimony on the proposed regulations. Friday January 11, our allies in the New Yorkers Against Fracking Coalition delivered 204,000+ comments to the DEC on the proposed regs, all including a call for a hydrofracking ban. Below are the official comments submitted to the DEC from the Green Party of New York State – our candidates, including 2010 candidate for Governor Howie Hawkins, all support a statewide and national…

Climate Change, Environment, Green Party December 24, 2012

Climate Change and Rebuilding NYC Post-Sandy

by Mark Dunlea The rebuilding of the NYC, Long Island and NJ coastal areas post Hurricane Sandy is a critical opportunity to impact how America responds to climate change. When I suggested this at a recent 350.org meeting in NYC, most people thought that rebuilding is about adaptation – and that our focus should be mitigation. I think that this moment in NYC presents critical opportunities for both. Shaping the rebuild conversation to center on a realistic assessment of how bad climate change is going to be in the future (well beyond Sandy’s footprint) and how we must adapt to…

2012 Election, Environment, Green Party, National Politics, Third Party October 27, 2012

Voting Green in a Swing State

Counterpunch by B. SIDNEY SMITH WEEKEND EDITION OCTOBER 26-28, 2012 “You’re Doing WHAT???” I live in a purple part of the country (Virginia) and move in academic circles, so of course I know many, many people who will be voting for Obama. It is impossible to know, but if I sodomized the Easter Bunny in front of their children the look on my Obama-voter friends’ faces could scarcely be much different than the look they get when I say I am voting for Jill Stein. “But this is a swing state…you have to vote for Obama…what if Romney wins?!?” The…