Newsitem List

On February 20 a Federal Court of Appeals in Washington DC rejected an attempt by Pacific Gas & Electric and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to quash a lawsuit filed by environmental group Friends Of the Earth (FOE)....

WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity sent a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Attorney General Eric Holder today formally requesting a public update by April 5 on the status of the case against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, whose livestock trespass on public lands led to a standoff last year after the Bureau of Land Management’s failed attempt to round up livestock....

On April 9, 1865, Union Genearl Ulysses S. Grant met Confederate General Robert E. Lee to set the terms of the Confederate Army surrender, beginning the end the US Civil War, the symbolic ending of four years of bloodsheed and America's Peculicar Institution....

Merging the Palm Oil Plantation development index on human rights abuses and the global oil and gas development index on human rights abuses One country takes the lead, Malaysia. (Other countries that produce palm oil and oil or natural gas for export include Indonesia, Liberia, Brazil, Venezuela). Land grabs for plantations are common place, and in some instances can be reversed. Global peasant and indigenous communities are rising up against corporate greed. The affluent health and cosmetic...

Zero-deforestation, Temporary Deforestation And Sustainable Palm Oil Plantations, High Carbon Stocking and High Conservation Value Forests are concepts printed on paper from pulp likely linked to deforestation. Commodity certification standards 'Responsible' and 'Sustainable' undermine organic, fair-trade, and local food systems. Indigenous land uses and rights are acknowledged in different countries under different conditions of tenure and recorded history. Few countries acknowledge legal de...

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif.—The San Luis Obispo City Council authorized city staff Tuesday night to send a letter opposing the Santa Maria Phillips 66 rail spur project, which would bring mile-long oil trains carrying 2.5 million gallons of crude nearly every day through San Luis Obispo. The letter will be sent from Mayor Jan Marx to the San Luis Obispo Planning Commission on behalf of the city, urging it to reject the project....

The U.S. Department of Agriculture approved the Okanagan Specialty Fruits’ genetically engineered Arctic Apples. These apples are engineered to resist browning when sliced. The USDA’s environmental review received 73,000 comments that overwhelmingly opposed the commercialization of Arctic Apples. This decision marks the first approval of an aesthetically-improved genetically engineered food and will expand the reach of GMO products into the produce aisle, which currently only offers a small n...

In April, the Purépecha municipality of Cherán K’eri, Michoacán is celebrating four years of its uprising to end organized crime in its territory....

SACRAMENTO—On February 6, the Associated Press reported that more than 2,500 injection wells that put aquifers that are federally protected or provide drinking water at risk in California have been permitted by a California agency. At least 46 percent of those—or 1,172—have been permitted in the last four years....

An international analytics firm estimates that due to the growth in demand for oil field surfactants used in fracking, the surfactant market will grow to over $1 Billion by the year 2020. The companies Stepan, Azkonobel, Huntsman, Lubrizol, Dow Chemicals and BASF are some of the prominent market players in oil field surfactants....