APP: The Most Destructive Company in the World?

The UK Guardian once referred to Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) as “one of the most destructive companies on the planet.” The following is a brief synopsis of why that description fits. A History of Bad Practices and Broken Promises Over 2 million hectares of rainforest have already been destroyed in Indonesia to feed the [...]

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Financed emissions: A big problem for banks, and a bigger problem for the climate

What is the total greenhouse gas footprint of Citigroup, Bank of America, or UBS? Right now, we don’t know, and that’s a major problem for both banks and the climate. Banks emit greenhouse gases to power their offices and branches, but they also finance the emissions of other companies through their loans, investments, and other [...]

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A Legal Setback for Clean Air and a New Chance to Fight Soot Pollution

Bad news for American hearts and lungs: Last week, a federal circuit court struck down a proposed EPA clean air standard that would have reduced dangerous emissions from coal-fired power plants and other sources. In a 2-1 decision, the court ruled that the EPA’s proposed Cross State Air Pollution Rule, or “Transport Rule” (PDF), exceeded [...]

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What Do Environmentalists And Animal Rights Activists Have In Common?

What do the environmental and animal rights movements have in common? More than you might think, including a profound love of certain vegan products that mark an intersection of our work to create a more just and sustainable future for all of Earth’s inhabitants. This past weekend I had the pleasure of participating in a [...]

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Fruit Pollutes More Than Coal?

It may seem like a silly question: Can fruit cause more pollution than coal? But from the perspective of Indonesian waterways, the answer is most certainly yes. According to Mukri Friatna, head of advocacy for WALHI (Friends of the Earth Indonesia), “Oil palm plantations ranked first as producers of pollutants, followed by mining companies.” WALHI [...]

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The Profits Over People Pattern

In what has become something of a pattern, the Obama administration recently took a bold new step to protect our planet at the same time that it was taking a giant step backwards. Hot on the heels of the announcement about the EPA’s plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from oil refineries and fossil-fueled power [...]

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Chevron And The Bittersweet California Election Results

November 3rd was a bittersweet day. The day after the midterm elections, we found out that Prop 23 — the so-called “Dirty Energy Proposition” that was funded by Texas oil companies Valero and Tesoro along with the billionaire oilmen Koch brothers — had gone down in flames, which was most certainly good news. But Prop [...]

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New EPA Coal Standard Saves Lives

The EPA just announced a new standard for sulfur dioxide emissions from coal fired power plants. According to the EPA in an article in the New York Times, this new standard would prevent 2,300 to 5,900 premature deaths and 54,000 asthma attacks a year, would cost the coal industry roughly $1.5 billion over the next [...]

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Why I might not invest in that coal plant after all

So there I was, thinking about this GREAT opportunity I just heard about to invest in a new coal-fired power plant. But then, just yesterday, our own special envoy for climate change to the state department Todd Stern said in an interview with the Financial Times: “How good will the business judgment of companies that [...]

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Public Interest Groups Oppose Carbon Capture Scam

In conjunction with the international release of a report by Greenpeace today – that identifies the ridiculous risk, uncertainty and cost associated with industry-driven plans for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), Public interest groups (from across the country) sent the following letter to Congress, demanding that taxpayer subsidies be disallowed CCS, and that safe, affordable and [...]

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