Environmental Politics

The vaunted "free market" is a fairy tale when energy industries are begging for subsidies from the federal government.

"COEBURN, Va. — Wearing helmets, headlamps and uniforms streaked with grime, the workers at Paramont Coal sound weary of fighting. They are in the middle of what they call a long-running 'war on coal' that is threatening their livelihood and stoking fury directed at the federal government."

"PHILADELPHIA -- Demonstrators in the United States and other countries protested Saturday against the natural gas drilling process known as fracking that they say threatens public health and the environment."

"The wind industry’s main trade association is predicting that new installations will fall to zero without a renewal of the production tax credit, which applies only to projects finished by New Year’s Eve. Since renewal is iffy, some wind machine factories are already shutting down, as my colleague Diane Cardwell reported on Friday."

"Ministers from Brazil, India, China and South Africa called for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, the world's only treaty that forces countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which expires at the end of the year."

"WASHINGTON -- House lawmakers skipped out of town on Friday until after the November elections, but not before pushing through a sweeping anti-environmental package that has no chance of becoming law."

"The Senate unanimously passed a bill on Saturday that would shield U.S. airlines from paying for their carbon emissions on European flights, pressuring the European Union to back down from applying its emissions law to foreign carriers."

"On June 4, 1963, less than a year after the controversial environmental classic 'Silent Spring' was published, its author, Rachel Carson, testified before a Senate subcommittee on pesticides. She was 56 and dying of breast cancer. She told almost no one. She'd already survived a radical mastectomy. Her pelvis was so riddled with fractures that it was nearly impossible for her to walk to her seat at the wooden table before the Congressional panel. To hide her baldness, she wore a dark brown wig."

"Organic champagne anyone? Environmental activists were celebrating Thursday as Quebec's new government gave an unambiguous thumbs-down to the shale gas industry in the morning and confirmed its intention to quickly shut down the Gentilly-2 nuclear plant in the afternoon."

"President Obama plans to bypass Congress and sign an executive order [Friday]designating the ancient Chimney Rock ruins in southwest Colorado as a new national monument, the administration announced late yesterday."