Pollution

Diane Wilson 7-10-2023
The author of this piece, Diane Wilson, is wearing a tan vest with a purple long-sleeve shirt, jeans, and brown boots. She's rolling up rope on a boat, which is docked next to another one to the left.

In 2019, shrimp boat captain Diane Wilson won a landmark case against Formosa Plastics for illegal dumping of toxic waste on Texas’ Gulf Coast. / Goldman Environmental Prize

Diane Wilson, a 2023 Goldman Environmental Prize winner, spoke with Sojourners’ associate news editor Mitchell Atencio.

I'M A FOURTH-GENERATION FISHERWOMAN. In 1989, I was working in Froggy’s Shrimp Company as one of the only woman fish house managers. A shrimper came in the office and pitched a [newspaper] article on the desk. It was the first time the toxic release inventory ever was made public. It was part of the Community Right-to-Know Act. Calhoun County is a small, rural county, but we were number one in the nation for toxic disposal.

That information just blew me out of the water. I walked down to city hall demanding a meeting. The backlash to that simple request was how it started — and it’s been like a rolling cannonball to hell ever since. We have Alcoa, Formosa, Union Carbide, and they all dumped into the head of the bay. The head of the bay is the nursery area — yet these chemical plants are discharging there. Fishermen would bring me fish that were rolling on top of the water, alligators rolling on top of the water. Shrimp had black spots in their heads. Juvenile black drum fish had stomachs that were disintegrating.
Fletcher Harper 6-09-2023
A man stands in the Empty Sky 911 Memorial in Jersey City, New Jersey looking towards the One World Trade Center tower in lower Manhattan in New York City shortly after sunrise as haze and smoke hangs over the Manhattan skyline

A man stands in the Empty Sky 911 Memorial in Jersey City, New Jersey looking towards the One World Trade Center tower in lower Manhattan in New York City shortly after sunrise as haze and smoke caused by wildfires in Canada hangs over the Manhattan skyline on  June 8, 2023. REUTERS/Mike Segar

Some insurance companies still use the phrase “act of God” to describe fires or other natural disasters for which no human agent can be held responsible. But we need to stop putting God on the hook: These disasters are happening because governments are drunk on the fossil fuel industry’s deadly Kool-Aid.

Eric Stoner 4-24-2023
A realistic illustration of a pale blue blank check set on top of a teal background.

filo / iStock

THERE IS A DISTURBING sense of déjà vu in the Philippines. Thirty-seven years after the nonviolent People Power movement ended the brutal and kleptocratic 20-year reign of Ferdinand Marcos Sr., his only son and namesake sits comfortably in the presidential palace. Following in his father’s footsteps, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is once again cozying up to the United States.

In 2012, the Obama administration began to “rebalance” U.S. military and trade agreements in Asia. Since 2014, the U.S. has had access to five military bases in the Philippines and trains Filipino soldiers under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) — all part of Obama’s “pivot to the Pacific.”

In February this year, Marcos agreed to allow the U.S. military to pre-position troops and weapons at another four bases. This gives the U.S. the largest military footprint it has had in the Philippines in 30 years, when a Filipino-led anti-colonial independence movement led to the removal of all permanent military bases in their country.

In its push to expand EDCA, the Biden administration said it would spend $82 million on projects at the first five bases. In addition, U.S. ambassador MaryKay Carlson announced $100 million in new foreign military financing for the Philippines “to use as it wishes.” The Philippines is already the largest recipient of U.S. military assistance in the region, receiving $1.14 billion in weapons and equipment since 2015. U.S. and Philippines government officials claim that the purpose of this growing U.S. military presence is to help with humanitarian crises and disaster relief, as well as to prepare for a future conflict with China, most likely over Taiwan.

Bill McKibben 9-24-2020

Illustration from photo by Johnny McClung on Unsplash

RIGHT THERE ON page one, it explains that our job is to exercise careful dominion over the planet, which God has just made and found good. It’s literally job one.

So let’s just list a few of the things that have happened over the last four years in this country to see how we’re doing. The administration has, according to The New York Times:

Dramatically weakened the fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks; canceled a requirement that oil and gas companies even report their methane emissions, at precisely the moment that methane emissions (a key greenhouse gas) are soaring; weakened federal rules to prevent air pollution in national parks; withdrawn from the Paris climate accords, the only global effort to slow climate change; shrunk national monuments to allow for more oil drilling; pushed through plans for pipelines despite massive resistance from farmers, ranchers, and Native Americans in their path; permitted the use of seismic air guns for oil and gas exploration in the Atlantic, despite the danger to marine life that had led to a ban; opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (the largest wildlife refuge in the country) to oil and gas drilling; revoked Obama-era flood standards for new federal projects requiring that sea level rise be considered; reversed Obama-era rules on sport hunting so that it’s now legal to bait grizzly bears with grease-soaked doughnuts; revoked a rule preventing coal companies from dumping mining debris in streams; blocked plans to mandate more efficient light bulbs; stopped payments we’d promised to the Green Climate Fund, which is designed to help poor countries reduce carbon emissions; and restarted the sale of plastic bottles in national parks. Believe me, I could go on.

the Web Editors 10-20-2017

Image via Shutterstock.com

Global pollution accounts for approximately 9 million premature deaths every year, according to a report by The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health.

The comprehensive study found that pollution is linked to 1-in-6 deaths globally — accounting for three times more than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined, The Guardian reports.

Dhanya Addanki 7-14-2017

Image via Dhanya Addanki/ Sojourners 

Help them understand they have a voice.

Elizabeth Brandt, a mom and a participant of the play-in, takes her young daughters to her senators’ office. She believes she believes this will lay a foundation for her daughter to speak up throughout her life.

“She may not have the most articulate things to say — last year when she was three she asked them not to throw trash in the ocean which our senators don’t do — but she’s learning that she has a voice in this process and that’s about the most important thing,” said Brandt.

Image via RNS/Reuters/Romeo Ranoco

Nine Catholic organizations from around the world have announced they are divesting their savings from coal, oil, and gas companies, in a joint bid to fight climate change.

Religious orders and dioceses from the U.S. and Italy made the announcement on May 10, ahead of international negotiations due this month on implementing the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Cindy Brandt 4-28-2017

To tell a Christian story about environmental care, we must redefine Christian stewardship. For a movement to attach Christ’s name to it, it must embody the spirit of Jesus as one who gave away his power. Christian stewardship, then, is not dominating with power, but yielding with care. First, we must listen to what the natural world is telling us and respond to it accordingly, not only because we ought to be tenderhearted people, but because it ensures our mutual flourishing

the Web Editors 8-07-2015

1. WATCH: Jon Stewart and ‘The Daily Show:’ 9 Essential Moments

The New York Times offers this great video retrospective from 16 years of Jon Stewart nailing it four nights a week. He will be missed. #JonVoyage

2. The Women of the Protest Line

Almost a year after Michael Brown’s death, Amy Pedersen writes on how the movement in Ferguson, Mo., and beyond is largely a movement of women. “When you watch this weekend from afar, know that you are watching the movement of women; that we are on the street because that is where God is moving. … We are women and because we are women, we know how to be brave.”

3. A Haunting Timelapse of the 2,058 Nuclear Detonations from 1945 to 1998

This week marks the 70th anniversary of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ushering in the Nuclear Age. Popular Mechanics provides this arresting visual of detonations since then. Note: Keep an eye on the tickers for Russia and the U.S.

Bill McKibben 6-08-2015

(Gti / Shutterstock)

ONE OF THE most destabilizing facts of the last five years is this: The price of a solar panel has fallen 75 percent. The engineers have done their job, and that offers many possibilities.

We usually look at what the developed countries are doing with renewable energy, such as the fact that there were days during summer 2014 when Germany was generating three quarters of its power from solar panels (Germany!). But the most amazing miracles—and it doesn’t really stretch the word “miracle”—are happening in the poorest places, where for the very first time lights are blazing on.

Take rural Bangladesh, where fossil fuel has barely penetrated  in the 200 years of its ascendancy in the West. There’s no grid—at night it just goes dark. Until the last few years, when low-cost solar panels and innovative financing arranged by groups such as the Grameen Bank have allowed the very rapid spread of solar panels. How rapid? As many as 80,000 new connections a month, which is far more than in the United States. Fifteen million Bangladeshis live in solar-powered houses already, and the government is hoping to have the entire nation hooked up by 2020.

Liz Schmitt 11-06-2013
M. Shcherbyna/Shutterstock

M. Shcherbyna/Shutterstock

This week the EPA is holding the last few of its listening sessions around the country — 11 in total by the end of the week – to hear what Americans have to say about the EPA’s plans to tackle climate change.

These listening sessions are our chance to give the EPA our comments in person — everyone can register for a three-minute testimony spot — about the agency’s upcoming rule on carbon pollution from existing power plants.

QR Blog Editor 10-22-2013

Unprecedented levels of air pollution effectively closed the city of Harbin in northern China earlier this week. Smog limited visibility in some places up to 30 feet, and measurements of fine particulate pollution skyrocketed a record 40 times higher than the worse safe level set by the World Health Organization, according to the Washington Post.

In the city of 11 million, schools, public bus routes, and the airport were all forced to suspend activities given the unsafe conditions. Hospital admittances of patients with respiratory problems soared an additional 30 percent.

The cause, according to local Chinese news outlets, was the first day of the city’s heating being turned on before winter. China’s air quality has consistently been found to be harmful in the recent decades of the country’s rapid industrial development.

Read more.

Jim Rice 4-03-2013

IN THE summer of 1969, then-Sen. Gaylord Nelson was on a conservation speaking tour of the West when he visited the beaches of Santa Barbara, at that time despoiled by one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history. The devastation affected him deeply. Later, while reading an article about the teach-ins organized by anti-Vietnam War activists, Nelson asked himself, Why not have a day for a nationwide teach-in on the environment? Thus was born Earth Day 1970.

The original Earth Day was marked by a massive public outpouring of concern for the environment. Earth Day helped spawn new laws such as the Clean Air and Water Acts and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, but it did little to staunch the more serious wounds of our dying planet. ... Much of the activity during the 20th-anniversary celebration of Earth Day this April 22 will focus on individual acts. ... But there is a danger in an overemphasis on personal acts, when the most grievous assaults on the natural world come from corporations and nations whose self-interested policies of acquisitiveness and greed have brought us to the edge of ecological cataclysm.

Philip Bump 1-07-2013

(Sheli Jensen / Shutterstock)

THE FINGER LAKES region of western New York is one of the most beautiful places on earth. The 11 lakes dangle like a necklace below Lake Ontario, surrounded by hills that are a breathtaking green in summer, red and orange for a flash in the autumn, then snowy white until the cycle repeats. It’s an area where the main tension has been of the resident-vs.-renter sort.

This summer, the tension, visibly staked out with lawn signs, was different. The topic: hydraulic fracturing, “fracking” for short. In this process, fluid—primarily water, with some sand and other chemicals—is injected deep underground to break apart shale rock, releasing natural gas and oil. Back at the surface, gas and oil are cleaned and sold; the water mixture is dumped into deep wells.

The procedure has only been made cost-effective in the last decade or so; awareness of retrievable shale oil and gas deposits isn’t a whole lot older. Combine the two, and you have an energy boom—one that led natural gas to nearly overtake coal for electricity production at one point last year.

A key question that has not been definitively answered: Does fracking, compared to the fuel it displaces, increase or decrease greenhouse gas production? Since natural gas, compared to coal, produces significantly less carbon dioxide when burned, cheaper natural gas is one reason why U.S. carbon dioxide emissions have gone down significantly of late. But natural gas is primarily methane—a gas that is more than 20 times as effective at trapping heat as carbon dioxide. During the fracking process, some of that methane escapes into the atmosphere; there is debate over how much.

Ben Lowe 10-04-2012
Climate change illustration, B Calkins / Shutterstock.com

Climate change illustration, B Calkins / Shutterstock.com

In my last column, "Three Numbers that Predict the Future of the Planet", I wrote about the state of the climate crisis and focused on three key data points that reveal a bleak, though not altogether hopeless, reality for us and for the rest of the planet.

As promised, this column is forward-looking and moves from describing the problem to prescribing the solution. To this end, I continue to draw heavily from the wisdom of Bill McKibben, Jim Ball, and other climate prophets who understand the times and are faithfully fighting to get us on the right track.

The way forward is not easy, but it will be good in the long run. Essentially, we need to set and enforce a limit on all remaining global warming pollution on the national and international scale, which will, we hope, keep warming to within 2oC. This will include some sort of pricing mechanism so that polluters have to take responsibility for paying for the costs of their own pollution. The problem is that we have not yet been able to muster the socio-political momentum necessary to reach these binding agreements. Turns out the polluters (largely the fossil fuel industry) don’t want to have to clean up after themselves. They’re also willing to fight with billions of dollars in campaign contributions and lobbying money to keep the status quo.

QR Blog Editor 7-10-2012

Salon reports on a new study which suggests that "fracking" can pollute water sources:

"A new study, published in the formidable Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, upends that common-sense argument. It shows that fluids may have traveled from deep within Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale, one of the formations at the center of the gas boom, into shallow aquifers hundreds of feet above. These fluids aren’t products of fracking, but if they can travel up through layers of rocks, close to the surface, it means that fracking fluids could, too."

Read more about the study here

QR Blog Editor 5-31-2012

From The Associated Press:

The world's air has reached what scientists call a troubling new milestone for carbon dioxide, the main global warming pollutant. Monitoring stations across the Arctic this spring are measuring more than 400 parts per million of the heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere.

Learn more here

God's Politics 2-07-2012

The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved legislation Tuesday that would reverse President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.

Rose Marie Berger 1-18-2012
Oil pipeline in Jefferson County, Texas. Via Wylio http://bit.ly/wslb1w

Oil pipeline in Jefferson County, Texas. Via Wylio http://bit.ly/wslb1w

Politico is reporting that President Obama is planning to reject the Keystone XL pipeline this afternoon.

Here’s a quick roundup of some reasons why we think that’s awesome:

 

Jack Palmer 1-18-2012
Keystone XL pipes in 2009. Image via Wiki Commons http://bit.ly/wetrWI

Pipes for the Keystone XL Pipeline in 2009. Image via Wiki Commons http://bit.ly/wetrWI

The building of a 1,700-mile pipeline through the heartland of the United States has been at the center of the debate on the economy for many months now. Much has been written by those who both support and oppose its construction. And much has also been written about just how important the pipeline would be to the U.S. economy if it were actually to be built.

With the deadline for the Obama administration’s decision on construction coming up fast (2/21), many have already made up their minds. But have they done so on the basis of accurate figures?

It might be pretty difficult to do so, given that various estimates put the number of jobs created though the construction of the pipeline at anywhere between 20 and 350,000. So where have all these different estimates come from, and which one (if any) is actually accurate?

The first difficulty that arises from trying to find an accurate estimate is that most of the numbers from the upper echelons of the estimates come from the company who are hoping to build the pipeline: TransCanada.