It’s the first day of summer and already the DC metro area is nearing a record high, but what else is new? Sadly these increasing record highs could prove fatal for many in the area in the years to come.
According to a report released by the NRDC and based on a study in the American Meteorological Society journal, 2,900 Baltimoreans and 3,000 Washingtonians will die prematurely from heat exhaustion due to global warming in the next century.
CCAN members are the best.
This is cross-posted from AppVoices Frontporch blog
A set of so-called pro-coal Representatives have introduced HR 6113 to prove that they care more about Don Blankenship’s approval than their constituents; health. This bill asserts that Obama’s EPA threatens national security.
Continuing their march to ignore evidence, make stuff up, and push for an entirely rampant and unregulated coal industry, coal-bound legislators have introduced what they are calling the Electric Reliability Protection Act” (HR 6113). If signed into law, this bill would defund EPA’s efforts to protect Appalachian citizens from the toxic valleyfills associated with mountaintop removal. In addition, the Representatives assert that the Obama Administration’s very attempt to protect citizens from toxic drinking water is indeed a threat to national security, which we’ll go into below. This is an election season bill that has little chance of passage. However, stunts like this allow Congressmen like Nick Rahall to prove that he needs Don Blankenship’s support more than he needs his constituents to have clean water, a decent job, or an average lifespan. This legislation is as cowardly as it is nihilistic, and just as irresponsible.
Of course, one of Senator Byrd’s final messages was that a majority of Congress opposes mountaintop removal, and it certainly shows in the lack of support for HR 6113. While a good bill like the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 1310) has 172 bipartisan cosponsors, HR 6113 has just 15, nearly all of them with some vested interest in the coal industry.
Future Hope column, August 16, 2009
The last week or so has been the right-wingers-at-town-meetings moment, and it looks like it’s going to be supplemented by something similar but different: rallies organized by fossil-fuel-supporting corporations in these states: Texas, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Colorado, Tennessee, Indiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Florida, South Carolina, Alaska, Illinois, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Missouri and Arkansas.
Two days ago Greenpeace released a memo written by the head of the American Petroleum Institute (API) apparently sent to Greenpeace by a less-than-loyal employee of one of the API member companies to whom it was sent. In the memo it referred to a “series of Continue reading
In 2003, the worst heat wave in recorded history hit Western Europe. Continue reading