CategoryCommentary

EPA comes out with the truth on fracking and drinking water

E

It was just a year and a half ago that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency came out with its first draft of a much-anticipated report about the impact that the boom in hydraulic fracking operations, or fracking, around the country was having on our drinking water. Environmentalists had encouraged such a study because the anecdotal evidence — people living near fracking rigs who...

How Dakota pipeline firm also threatens Louisiana

H

There was some very good news this week on the environmental front, for a change. At a moment when things looked darkest for the stirring protest movement against the Dakota Access pipeline — with a brutal winter bearing down on the rural North Dakota protest site and authorities threatening to clear out their encampment — there was a dramatic reversal of fortune. Army officials...

Climate change is attacking the Great Barrier Reef

C

One of the more fantastic experiences that I’ve enjoyed in my lifetime was an opportunity, several years ago, to scuba dive along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. This is truly one of the world’s great natural splendors; it is the largest living thing on Planet Earth, stretching some 900 miles, and it is also much larger than anything that humans have ever constructed. Chock full...

The Dakota pipeline and the assault on Native Americans

T

Thanksgiving is a day for spending time with family and friends, but also a time to remember some of the simple moral values that make America the nation that it is — or at least that it can be. The elegant origin story of the holiday is a tale of unity and overcoming differences, when the first European settlers in America and Native Americans combined the bounty of their harvests to...

Trump’s crazy climate policy is even worse than you think

T

More than a week into the transition into Donald Trump’s presidential administration, we don’t know which of his campaign promises he will actually keep, and which ones will be tossed out the window. On the environment, we know that he’s getting his advice from some dangerous people, including the climate-change denier Myron Ebell, who’s been tapped to help fill top jobs...

The Trump environmental disaster begins

T

For the last few months, I’ve written at least a half dozen posts about the massive environmental catastrophe that awaits America and the world if Donald Trump were to be elected president. Clearly, not enough voters were focused on these issues when they pulled the lever on Tuesday. Now, barring the unexpected, Trump will be the president of the United States from January 2017 to January...

How natural gas poisoned a poor Alabama town

H

It’s been going on for decades — poor towns in the Deep South, often with a predominantly black population — getting dumped on, whether it’s by Big Oil or by chemical plants or by toxic-waste disposal firms. Many of my earliest cases as an environmental lawyer were in these off-the-beaten track places such as Brookhaven, Mississippi or Martha, Kentucky, where oil companies...

Climate breakthrough is another reminder of the stakes in November

C

With all of the crazy things that have happened — or are happening right now — in the 2016 presidential race, it’s easy to lose track of the issues that really matter. The non-stop flow of groping and assault allegations swirling around Republican Donald Trump, or the hacked emails of aides to Democrat Hillary Clinton, are sensational stories that tend to drown out any serious...

The truth about Hurricane Matthew and climate change

T

As I write this, Hurricane Matthew — a monster Category 4 storm — is just hours away from striking the central Florida coast. Millions of people have evacuated over the last day or so, and those who’ve stayed behind face an enormous risk from winds as high as 140 mph, from storm surges as great as nine feet or more, and other hazards such as falling trees. The entire nation...

A new twist in the fight against ExxonMobil’s climate lies

A

The push is on to hold the world’s largest energy company accountable for decades of unchecked pollution and for its lies about greenhouse-gas pollution that have served as its unsteady foundation. The company in question is ExxonMobil, the fossil-fuel conglomerate known for setting world records for quarterly profits, raking in billions of dollars every month. With its secretive ways...

Stuart H. Smith is an attorney based in New Orleans fighting major oil companies and other polluters.
Cooper Law Firm

Follow Us

© Stuart H Smith, LLC