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Archive for June 19th, 2015
Fossil fuel memes: oil spills are a beach
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
Guardian: Life on the beach isn’t always a vacation. Here are some postcards that nobody would want to send, courtesy of fossil fuels
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Battle Over New Oil Train Standards Pits Safety Against Cost
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
National Public Radio: The federal government's new rules aimed at preventing explosive oil train derailments are sparking a backlash from all sides.
The railroads, oil producers and shippers say some of the new safety requirements are unproven and too costly, yet some safety advocates and environmental groups say the regulations aren't strict enough and still leave too many people at risk.
Since February, five trains carrying North Dakota Bakken crude oil have derailed and exploded into flames in the U.S. and Canada....
Pope: Earth has turned into an “immense pile of filth”
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
CBS: In a sweeping environmental manifesto aimed at spurring concrete action, Pope Francis called Thursday for a bold cultural revolution to correct what he described as a "structurally perverse" economic system where the rich exploit the poor, turning Earth into an "immense pile of filth."
Francis framed climate change as an urgent moral issue to address in his eagerly anticipated encyclical, blaming global warming on an unfair, fossil fuel-based industrial model that harms the poor most.
Citing...
Pope Francis’ climate message yields little GOP response
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on June 19th, 2015
Agence France-Presse: Pope Francis' call for dramatic action on climate change drew a round of shrugs from congressional Republicans, while a number of the party's presidential candidates ignored it entirely.
"I don't want to be disrespectful, but I don't consider him an expert on environmental issues," said Texas Rep. Joe Barton, a senior Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, in a comment echoed by others in his party.
Even Capitol Hill's Catholic Republicans, despite their religion's reverence for the...
Pope Francis: Protect the Climate as a ‘Common Good’
Posted by Environment News Service: None Given on June 19th, 2015
Environment News Service: “The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all,” declares Pope Francis in his first major teaching on the environment, an encyclical letter released today. Pope Francis urges all human beings to change their behavior to protect the good resources we all hold in common – the climate, the oceans, biodiversity – “the planet, our common home.” “Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last two hundred years. Yet we are called to be instruments of God...