Environment

Job Opening at CMD: Writer/reporter (environmental, food and agricultural issues)

by Sari Williams — January 22, 2011 - 10:04am
  • Topics: Food Safety, Environment

    • The Center for Media and Democracy needs a talented writer/reporter/researcher to join our team, with a particular focus on cutting edge environmental, food, and agricultural issues.

    Fiji Water Flees Fiji

    by Anne Landman — January 13, 2011 - 3:02pm

    The Fiji bottled water company is stomping out of Fiji in protest after the country's government increased a tax it charges on the water from one-third of a Fiji cent to 15 cents per liter. Half of Fijians lack access to safe water while the Fiji Water company exports clean bottled water to the U.S., where Americans shell out 3,300 times what tap water costs to buy it. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Americans pay around .002 to .003 cents per gallon for tap water, while one liter of Fiji water (less than a quarter of a gallon) costs about $2.19. Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food and Water Watch says, "Like oil in the 20th Century, water has become increasingly managed by corporate cartels that move it around the globe, where it flows out of communities towards money ... Water must be managed as a common resource, not a market commodity." Ironically, Fiji Water, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo -- beverage companies that also extract water from developing countries facing water scarcity -- have been named finalists for the U.S. Secretary of State's 2010 Award for Corporate Excellence.

    Main Source: 
    Food and Water Watch, November 29, 2010

    Leaked EPA Memos May Explain Massive Bee Die-Off

    by Anne Landman — January 3, 2011 - 3:28pm

    CMD's guest blogger, Jill Richardson, has done some ground-breaking reporting on the potential cause of the massive bee die-off.  According to Jill's investigation, leaked U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) memos reveal that the agency gave conditional approval to pesticides now in wide use, without requiring adequate proof that they are safe to use around honeybees. In the wake of the new information, beekeepers are starting to blame the country's massive die-off of honeybees on the pesticides. A leaked EPA memo dated November 2, 2010, discusses Bayer CropScience's efforts to legalize use of its pesticide clothianidin on mustard seed and cotton crops. EPA gave conditional approval for the chemical in 2003 and let Bayer start selling it, but told the company that they needed to complete further safety testing by a certain deadline to get full approval. The  additional testing was to assure the chemical was safe to use around honeybees. Bayer failed to do the testing for years, and instead sought and received an extension of the conditional permit to use the chemical. When Bayer finally performed the study, they did it in another country, and on crops that aren't grown much in the U.S. Bayer also used bees that were located on a small patch of treated crops surrounded by thousands of acres on untreated crops -- a design that handed Bayer the result it wanted by making the chemical appear safe to use. EPA deemed the defective study acceptable and gave full registration to clothianidin in 2007. In November, 2010, when Bayer asked to extend use of the pesticide to more types of crops, EPA still did not comment on the inadequacy of Bayer's study. Beekeepers are incensed at this information, and along with others are asking why EPA allows pesticides to go onto the market before they have been adequately safety tested. They also wonder how sound the science around such studies can be when they are performed by the pesticide makers themselves.

    Main Source: 
    Alternet, December 10, 2010

    No Surprise: The Natural Gas Revolving Door

    by Steve Horn — December 9, 2010 - 4:02pm

    Those who follow energy politics closely should not be surprised. The government-industry revolving door constantly spins rapidly, and thus it is no different on the natural gas front within the United States. This is highlighted acutely by ProPublica in an article titled, "Some Appointees to Oil and Gas Commission Are Industry Execs, Lobbyists."

    The article states, speaking about the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission,

    Main Source: 
    ProPublica, December 9, 2010

    Democracy Now! Features CMD's Work Spotlighting BP

    by Lisa Graves — September 16, 2010 - 6:57am
  • Topics: Environment

    • Investigative journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez recently featured our investigations and analysis of BP's greenwashing and spin. The interview highlights our work responding to BP's involvement in California's environmental curriculum for primary and secondary students, a story broken by Rick Daysog and the Sacramento Bee.

    The extensive interview, a transcript of which is available here, also highlights our continuing coverage of BP's use of toxic dispersants. It also helped spread the word about our objections to the judges siding with the oil industry against the proposed deep-sea drilling ban. The interview also discusses CMD's work exposing the millionaire fat cats behind the misleading attack ads against Senator Russ Feingold.

    Playing Hide and Seek With Oil

    by Anne Landman — August 26, 2010 - 2:07pm

    A new report authored by five prominent marine scientists provides a powerful contradiction of the government's recent report that only 25 percent of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster remains in the Gulf of Mexico.

    Main Source: 
    University of Georgia News Service, August 17, 2010

    San Francisco's Free "Organic Biosolids Compost" is Toxic Sludge, and Not Good For You!

    by John Stauber — August 17, 2010 - 3:01pm
  • Topics: Food Safety, Activism, Sludge, Environment, Health, Science

    • Independent testing commissioned by the Food Rights Network found toxic contaminants in San Francisco's sewage sludge "compost." In the sludge product given away free to gardeners from 2007 to March 4, 2010, are contaminants with endocrine-disruptive properties including PBDE flame retardants, nonylphenol detergent breakdown products, and the antibacterial agent triclosan. The independent tests were conducted for the Food Rights Network by Dr. Robert C. Hale of the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences.

    Watch a CBS 5 KPIX August 10, 2010 report providing a startling story of how San Francisco is violating its own precautionary principle law by dumping toxic sludge on city gardens.

    The Dirtiest Sport

    by Maxwell Abbott — August 13, 2010 - 1:25pm
  • Topics: Environment

    • The recession affected every sector and industry of the economy. Amongst those hardest hit was the sport that some feel rivals baseball as America's pastime: NASCAR. With less spending money in the average American's pocket, all professional sports leagues suffered -- but NASCAR, which experienced tremendous growth in the early 2000s, saw reduced attendance at every race this past year.

    T-Boone Pickens and the Truth about All that Drilling

    by Steve Horn — August 10, 2010 - 1:20pm
  • Topics: Advertising, Global Warming, Energy, Environment, Lobbying, Public Relations

    • The home page of T. Boone Pickens' "Pickens Plan" is emblematic of the oil industry's aggressive push to drill for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale basin. The page greets visitors with the blaring headline, "WE MUST BREAK AMERICA'S ADDICTION TO FOREIGN OIL. The Pickens Plan will do it, but we need your help."

    In the age of the perpetual War on terrorism, politicians, pundits and other U.S. demagogues have successfully used fear as a bargaining chip. Fear-mongering is a method of Orwellian thought control. In this example, Pickens equates foreign oil with evil, similar to the Bush Administration's Orewellian logic regarding American's position in the world: "You're either with us, or you're with the enemy." Bush put forth a false paradigm of absolute good versus absolute evil. The Bush Administration used fear as a political tool after 9/11 to march the country into war, and convince citizens that we need to permit domestic spying to keep us safe domestically. (Think Patriot Act). Fear also led to the heinous crimes committed at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib Detention Centers.

    Denver's Insidious Commie Bike Plot

    by Anne Landman — August 5, 2010 - 11:08pm

    Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate and Tea Party favorite Dan Maes warned crowd of supporters that Denver's new bicycle sharing program is really a disguised plot by the United Nations to "rein in American cities" and put the en

    Main Source: 
    Denver Post, August 4, 2010
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