Last week's post on the architecture of the Make It Right Foundation's new homes in New Orleans brought some thoughtful comments, and it brought even more when I reposted it...
In August, I was able to spend a week in the Tongass National Forest with a NRDC group led by our Founding Director John Adams. Spanning 17 million acres of southeast Alaska, the Tongass National Forest is the largest forest in the U.S. and the largest remaining temperate rainforest on Earth. It was truly beautiful with towering mountains, vast expanses of trees, fjords, and islands. The Tongass...
NRDC's President, Frances Beinecke, traveled last July to the Peace-Athabasca Delta BioGem in Alberta, Canada. She wrote in her blog about the visit that:
All four major bird flyways in North America converge in one spot in the boreal, right here. More than 1 million birds, including tundra swans, snow geese and countless ducks, stop to rest and gather...
Bristol Bay in Alaska is NRDC's newest BioGem. The Bay's watershed sits on the eastern-most arm of the Bering Sea, about 200 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska. Its massive salmon runs provide food for grizzlies, wolves, eagles, beluga whales and orcas. The salmon-rich waters also support commercial, recreational and subsistence fishing.
Despite Bristol Bay's ecological and economic importance, its health is immediately threatened by the...
Today the Port of Long Beach violated the public trust and sold out the citizens of Long Beach by approving a worthless settlement agreement with the American Trucking Association ("ATA") in ATA's lawsuit against the Los Angeles ports' clean trucks programs. Rather than clean up the trucks that serve its port, Long Beach ran away from a fight with ATA - an organization that has opposed clean air regulation locally and nationally - and is content to sit on the sidelines while the Port of Los Angeles pays to...
On Days 1 and 2 of this experiment, my first thought was to reconsider some wise words from my favorite provider of quotes -- my mom. She loves to point out that when we throw something away, there is really no such thing as "away." That concept is simple and true, yet so easily overlooked in an age where comfort and convenience are king. Even for the meticulous recyclers -- those of...
Yesterday, NYC Mayor Michael P. Bloomberg and Newark Mayor Cory Booker teamed up with Teamsters President James P. Hoffa to endorse federal legislation that would enable ports around the nation to adopt local green-growth programs to reduce air pollution and improve labor conditions in their midst. NRDC has been working with the Teamsters, the Change-to-Win labor coalition, environmental justice leaders and others to advance this legislation, and here's why:
Our nation's...
Are you drinking water contaminated by coal pollution? Apparently, that's what folks living in the shadows of the South Carolina Electric & Gas coal plant fear.
A chilling story published in the Charleston Post & Courier tells how local residents "have wondered for years about the black specks in their drinking water. When they turn on their faucets, water sometimes pours...
The White House released the "Recovery through Retrofit" report today, which reaches familiar conclusions - retrofitting homes and developing a residential energy efficiency industry can save money, slash carbon emissions, and create jobs right now. The report also had specific policy recommendations that won't be new to any reader of this blog. They fit perfectly with the policies that NRDC has worked hard to get into both the House and Senate Climate and energy bills and this report only strengthens the case...
I think the Florida PSC's Mission Statement is a good one: To facilitate the efficient provision of safe and reliable utility services at fair prices.
Unfortunately, the Staff of the Florida Public Service Commission (FPSC) brazenly showed neglect for this purposeful statement, and instead elected to dis-serve the citizens of Florida by opting for a more polluting, expensive and volatile energy future.
Required by law...
