"Where would Jesus drill? Religious leaders who consider environmental protection a godly mission are making the Gulf of Mexico oil spill a rallying cry, hoping it inspires people of faith to support cleaner energy while changing their personal lives to consume less and contemplate more."
NOAA's "State of the Coast" contains both quick facts and detailed information regarding this 95,000-mile-long zone and all the players involved. It generally addresses longer-term issues, such as environmental degradation, climate, hazards, economics, and demographics.
A study was published in Environmental Health Perspectives found that the most sprawling US cities have 2.6 times the risk of deadly extreme heat events than those with the least sprawl — regardless of the population, location, or rate of growth of an urban area.
After hearing for years about public concern over the adverse health and environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing used to increase production of natural gas, US EPA has begun a process (including 4 public meetings in July; CO, NY, PA, TX) to decide what the issues are and how to address them.
"Federal immigration officials have been visiting command centers on the Gulf Coast to check the immigration status of response workers hired by BP and its contractors to clean up the immense oil spill."
"Louisiana is married to the oil and gas business, for better or for worse. The energy industry depends on Louisiana to supply 30 percent of the nation's oil supply, and Louisiana depends on the industry as the state's biggest economic engine. But there is a cost, as the Deepwater Horizon has proven."
"An Indian tribe, an indigenous rights support group and a mining watchdog group have failed in their joint court bid to block the expansion of a gold mine in northeastern Nevada."
Petrochemical companies like BP won a key battle in achieving unpoliced self-regulation early in the Bush administration -- when they got friends in Congress and the White House to shut EPA out of chemical safety and security oversight. As public health advocates point to possible disasters more lethal than the Gulf spill, there may be an opportunity to reverse the federal government's decisions not to protect the public from petrochemical disasters.
"The town of Grand Bayou, Louisiana, has no streets and no cars, just water and boats. And now the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico threatens the very existence of the Atakapa-Ishak Indians who live there. 'We're facing the potential for cultural genocide,' says one tribe member."
Anne Womack Kolton, who as former VP Dick Cheney's press aide defended the secrecy of his energy task force, has been brought in to fix BP's PR problems in the Gulf oil spill.
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