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The coal industry is off to a terrible, no good, very bad year
Posted by Mother Jones: Tim McDonnell on January 14th, 2016
Mother Jones: During his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Barack Obama reiterated his call to eliminate federal subsidies for fossil fuels in an effort to speed up the transition to cleaner energy sources. It's something he's asked for nearly every year of his presidency, and it hasn't happened yet. But this year, he added something new: a plan to charge oil and coal companies more for leases on federal land, to offset the damage their products do to the climate.
It was just the latest piece...
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America’s Food System Could Be More Vulnerable to Climate Change Than We Thought
Posted by Mother Jones: Tim McDonnell on January 6th, 2016
Mother Jones: For billions of people around the world, the most immediate threat posed by climate change is at the dinner table, as staple crops face a steadily worsening onslaught of drought, heat waves, and other extreme weather events. The United States certainly isn't immune to these challenges; for proof, just look at California, where an unprecedented drought has cost the state's agriculture industry billions.
Still, the conventional thinking among many scientists is that developing countries, particularly...
Angry tweets from Republican leaders on the Keystone XL decision
Posted by Mother Jones: Tim McDonnell on November 6th, 2015
Mother Jones: Friday morning, after years of heated battles between environmentalists and Republicans, President Barack Obama announced that he is rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline. In a speech, the president criticized both supporters and detractors of the pipeline from placing too much emphasis on a project that, according to the State Department’s analysis, would neither create many jobs nor ruin the climate if approved. Still, reactions to his decision from Republicans in Congress and the 2016 presidential...
One of the World’s Biggest Lakes Is Dying & We’re to Blame
Posted by Mother Jones: Tim McDonnell on January 30th, 2015
Mother Jones: He's sitting behind a wooden table piled with a dozen tilapia and Nile perch at the market in Katoro, a roadside town in northern Tanzania. The fish--a staple of the Tanzanian diet--came in that morning from Lake Victoria, an hour's drive north. Around us, hundreds of shoppers are snatching up pineapples, textiles, and motorcycle parts. But Mohammed explains that basic economics is keeping customers away from his fish.
"There's less fish," he says. "So the price goes up, so customers can't afford...
Coal country bank first to report carbon footprint to shareholders
Posted by Mother Jones: Tim McDonnell on February 21st, 2013
Mother Jones: There's a growing interest among enviros these days in combating climate change with direct offensives against the fossil fuel industry, sights locked on its bottom line. The idea is that while we scramble to invent more efficient light bulbs and throw up solar panels, we also chip away at the mountain of money that gives the industry its power, by turning shareholders on to the idea that unwise investments can make them accomplices in global warming. Activist investment is nothing new, of course,...
Is the gas industry buying academics?
Posted by Mother Jones: Tim McDonnell on July 30th, 2012
Mother Jones: Last week the University of Texas provost announced he would re-examine a report by a UT professor that said fracking was safe for groundwater after the revelation that the professor pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Texas natural gas developer. It's the latest fusillade in the ongoing battle over the basic facts of fracking in America.
Texans aren't the only ones having their fracking conversations shaped by industry-funded research. Ohioans got their first taste last week of the...