Mon, 2013-05-13 15:05Farron Cousins
Farron Cousins's picture

Could NAFTA Force Keystone XL On United States?

As the public anxiously awaits the U.S. State Department’s final decision on the fate of the Keystone XL Pipeline, the discussion has largely ignored the elephant in the room: the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA.)

Thanks to NAFTA, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, the State Department will likely be able to do little more than stall the pipeline’s construction. In its simplest form, NAFTA removes barriers for North American countries wishing to do business in or through other North American countries, including environmental barriers. The goal of the agreement was to promote intra-continental commerce and help the economies of all involved in the agreement.

Read more: Could NAFTA Force Keystone XL On United States?
Mon, 2013-05-13 11:45Kevin Grandia
Kevin Grandia's picture

America's First Climate Refugees

The Guardian news outlet is running a series this week on the small Alaskan town of Newtok that is slowly being wiped off the map as the waters rise around it.

The Army Corp of Engineers predicts that the highest point in Newtok could be under water by as early as 2017. This is irrefutable evidence that climate change is here now, and the sea level rises are no longer a prediction by scientists, but happening as we speak.

Guardian journalist Suzanne Goldenberg writes,

These villages, whose residents are nearly all native Alaskans, are already experiencing the flooding and erosion that are the signature effects of climate change in Alaska. The residents of a number of villages – including Newtok – are now actively working to leave their homes and the lands they have occupied for centuries and move to safer locations.

Once upon a time, it was considered politically savvy in some quarters to downplay or outright deny the realities of climate change. But now, with communities in exile from the impacts, denying climate change seems to me to be borderline negligent.

Read more: America's First Climate Refugees
Sun, 2013-05-12 12:57Farron Cousins
Farron Cousins's picture

Obama, Biden Parroting Bogus Gas Industry Talking Points

For several years, both President Obama and Vice President Biden have been singing the praises of natural gas and hydraulic fracturing, claiming that the upcoming “cheap energy boom” would bring hundreds of thousands of jobs to work-hungry Americans.

The claim, which reached the most ears during the President’s 2012 State of the Union Address and was parroted throughout the campaign season, was that the new shale gas bonanza would bring 600,000 new jobs to America over the next decade.  With job creation as a top campaign issue, this talking point resonated well with American voters. 

And while the talking point was blindly reprinted by countless media outlets, the source has been traced back to the dirty energy industry itself.  Specifically, a 2012 shale gas / fracking booster sheet produced by the American Petroleum Institute.

Read more: Obama, Biden Parroting Bogus Gas Industry Talking Points
Fri, 2013-05-10 10:47Guest
Guest's picture

Will Future Generations Call Obama The ‘Environmental President’ Or An Abject Failure?

This is a guest post by Joe Romm, cross-posted from ClimateProgress with permission. 

It's tempting to grade the President on a curve, but future generations won't -- if we destroy the livable climate they'll need to feed 9 billion people.

Read more: Will Future Generations Call Obama The ‘Environmental President’ Or An Abject Failure?
Fri, 2013-05-10 05:00Guest
Guest's picture

Into Wine: New Book by Olivier Magny Explores Terroirism, Soil Health and More

This is a guest post by French sommelier Olivier Magny, author of the new book, Into Wine: An Invitation to Pleasure. 

When you like wine, and start to learn more about it, you quickly realize that the soil makes a difference. Studying how vineyards were farmed has helped me grasp that the importance of the soil actually goes far beyond wine, and that the implications of mistreating it are also much more far-reaching that we think.

Under the combined effects of chemical pesticides, chemical fertilizers, deep plowing and tractors, we’ve managed to eradicate most of the life of our soils. Even though it may come across as unchanged on the surface, the truth is that for the most part, our soil has now turned to dirt.

After a few decades of mining our soils instead of farming them, we have destroyed them[1]. Messing with the soil is a gigantic mistake—and Nature has already started to get back at us for it.

Read more: Into Wine: New Book by Olivier Magny Explores Terroirism, Soil Health and More

Pages

Subscribe to DeSmogBlog