It sounds almost too impossible to believe: Radioactive, toxic waste — ounce for ounce, one of the most dangerous substances known to man — dumped into major sewage plants, screwing up the works and then flowing into some of America’s most scenic and important waterways, passing through highly populated areas. But that is exactly what is happening across the state of Pennsylvania...
President Obama gave an extensive interview late last week to the Huffington Post, and to the president’s credit he brought up one of the most pressing problems facing America and mankind: Climate change. Increasingly, the Obama White House has taken a tougher stance on the issue, insisting that the administration is willing to act to curb the emissions of greenhouse gases that cause...
The big oil companies love to portray the rise of fracking as a great American success story — using 21st Century technology and know-how to locate and extract pockets of cheap energy that were thought to be unreachable, reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil and lowering your energy cost. But Big Oil doesn’t want you to know the sausage-making, as it were, that goes into...
One of the big issues surrounding fracking is whether drillers should be required to disclose the chemicals they use to blast through rock formations deep under the earth. Environmental groups and local residents say that information is vital to protecting the public health, while the oil and gas companies insist this is proprietary business information. This week, we got another inkling of the...
“Industry does everything they can and gets away with it almost all the time, whether it’s the coal industry, not the subject of this hearing, or water or whatever. They will cut corners, and they will get away with it.” — West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller. Water is our most precious natural resource — I don’t know anybody who would dispute that. But it’s appalling the...
Something funny happened last Saturday during the annual big game between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, a game that locals in the Sooner State refer to as “Bedlam.” The kicker for Oklahoma State calmly booted a long field through the uprights — even though the ground was shaking underneath him. That’s right — in what may have been a first in college football history...
