Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “climate change”
With a declining market for coal in the United States, the coal industry wants to export its product to China, where demand is bigger than ever. What would rail traffic and new port construction mean for the environment and the “clean economy” of the Pacific Northwest? What about global warming? Listen to the full story here.
You might have heard the talk: Coal interests are pushing to make the Pacific Northwest a 24-hour conveyor belt linking coal mines in Montana and Wyoming with Asian markets clamoring for cheap, dirty power. The most urgent fight is currently taking place just north of Bellingham at Cherry Point, the site of a proposed coal-export terminal that would be the …
Is it morally wrong for the U.S. to export coal? That’s a question some people are asking in the Pacific Northwest. The region has become a transit route for coal dug up in states such as Wyoming and shipped to Asia. Those experts are growing fast. NPR’s Martin Kaste has this story about the backlash. Read the full story here.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, following in the footsteps of Gov. John Kitzhaber, called today for a sweeping federal review of coal exports from the Northwest. Merkley’s letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Land Management requested an expedited “programmatic environmental impact statement.” The government should look at the effects of large-scale exports from all the Northwest coal export projects in the hopper, and evaluate …
The Northwest is poised to become the country’s leading coal-exporting region, but critics worry about one of the biggest impacts: increased greenhouse-gas emissions from burning U.S. coal in China. Read the full story here.
Environmentalists are focused oil and gas, but a bigger carbon disaster may be brewing in the Pacific Northwest. Coal is without question our dirtiest fuel source: When burned, it dumps toxins like mercury and nitrogen oxides into the air and packs an outsize punch when it comes to carbon emissions. Since America has a lot of it, though, we’ve tended …
After years of lobbying, Portland environmentalists won a remarkable victory in 2010 when Portland General Electric consented to halt coal-burning by 2020 at its Boardman power plant — the single-largest Oregon source of greenhouse gas emissions. Washington environmentalists replicated the feat months later, securing a similar pledge for the Northwest’s other coal plant in Centralia. But soon after the deals …
Over 600 gathered at the rally in Portland, OR on May 7th to hear speakers including: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Chairman Waterkeeper Alliance, Chief Prosecuting Attorney for Hudson Riverkeeper; Paul Lumley, Executive Director Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, citizen of the Yakama Nation; Chair Jeff Cogen, Multnomah County; Hao Xin, Executive Director, Green Zhejiang, Qiantang River Waterkeeper; Toni Montgomery, Grandmother, …
On Monday, May 7th, 2012, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke in Portland, OR to over 600 concerned citizens about the dangers of coal and coal export. Credits: http://photos.oregonlive.com/oregonian/2012/05/coal_rally_3.html http://videos.oregonlive.com/oregonian/2012/05/robert_f_kennedy_jr_on_the_dan.html
A new link in the world’s future energy supply could soon be built here on the Columbia River, and it would have nothing to do with the vast acres of wind turbines or the mammoth hydroelectric dams that give this region’s power sources one of the cleanest carbon footprints in the nation. Read full story here.
