Bienvenidos a OtrosMundosChiapas AC (Friends of the Earth Mexico) Seven Companies Polluting the World Without Consequences Truthout is able to confront the forces of greed and regression only because we don’t take corporate funding. Support us in this fight: make a tax-deductible donation today by clicking here. (Image: Polluting factory via Shutterstock) The only thing more horrifying than rampant industrial pollution is pollution without consequences. Yet, companies across the globe freely dump toxic substances into the environment and get off with minimal punishments, sometimes even walking away from a pollution incident without being held accountable. That leaves residents, and governments, with the bill for cleaning up potentially life-threatening environmental pollution, a process that may take decades. 1. This company’s in the news this week thanks to a benzene spill near Parachute, Colorado. 2. The aerospace giant generates tremendous amounts of pollution in the course of its daily operations, including at a now abandoned facility in Calverton, New York. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Deontofi.com | Le site de la Déontologie Financière Bienvenido a CEIBA - Friends of the Earth Guatemala The Privatization of Water: Nestlé Denies that Water is a Fundamental Human Right The current Chairman and former CEO of Nestlé, the largest producer of food products in the world, believes that the answer to global water issues is privatization. This statement is on record from the wonderful company that has peddled junk food in the Amazon, has invested money to thwart the labeling of GMO-filled products, has a disturbing health and ethics record for its infant formula, and has deployed a cyber army to monitor Internet criticism and shape discussions in social media. This is apparently the company we should trust to manage our water, despite the record of large bottling companies like Nestlé having a track record of creating shortages: Large multinational beverage companies are usually given water-well privileges (and even tax breaks) over citizens because they create jobs, which is apparently more important to the local governments than water rights to other taxpaying citizens. Here is just one example, among many, of his company’s concern for the public thus far:
WWF - Find your local WWF office CENSAT Agua Viva - Amigos de la Tierra Colombia The New Farm Bill Shows What's Wrong With US Food We need your help to sustain grassroots, groundbreaking journalism. Make a tax-deductible contribution to Truthout now by clicking here. (Photo: David Baron / Flickr)Thomas Jefferson believed that the U.S. ought to be a nation of small farmers, each owning his own land, independent and self-sufficient. But the new farm bill is all about what’s wrong with food production in the U.S. now. A quick review of the $1 trillion 2013 farm bill — it’s actually the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012; Congress didn’t get around to passing it last year — not only makes it clear how small farmers are second-class citizens, but also pushes for chemical sugar substitutes and GMO food and fails to take provisions to prepare American agriculture for climate change. If that’s not enough, the bill also cuts food stamps to the poor by about $20.5 billion. Cuts to Food Stamp Program It is the case that food stamp usage is up by at least 70 percent since the financial crisis in 2008. Climate Change?
Amigos de la Tierra Argentina Kassie Siegel: 5 Fatal Flaws in President Obama's New Fracking Regulations They're popping up all over America's public lands, bringing toxic chemicals and dangerous pollution to beautiful wild areas and nearby farms and communities. Fracking rigs have spread like poisonous mushrooms across land managed by the federal government, which leases millions of acres a year to oil and gas companies. Most Americans don't know that 90 percent of wells drilled on our public lands are now fracked. There is, however, growing awareness of the dangers of fracking. But anyone hoping the Obama Administration would protect our public lands and public health from fracking pollution got a sobering reality check late last week. Proposed fracking regulations unveiled Friday by new Interior Secretary Sally Jewell would do little to safeguard our air, water or wildlife. Fossil fuel executives can breathe easy now -- even if the rest of us choke on air pollution. Among the biggest flaws in the BLM's planned regulations: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
5 Fatal Flaws in President Obama's New Fracking Regulations The Huffington Post, May 21, 2013 5 Fatal Flaws in President Obama's New Fracking Regulations By Kassie Siegel They're popping up all over America's public lands, bringing toxic chemicals and dangerous pollution to beautiful wild areas and nearby farms and communities. Fracking rigs have spread like poisonous mushrooms across land managed by the federal government, which leases millions of acres a year to oil and gas companies. Most Americans don't know that 90 percent of wells drilled on our public lands are now fracked. But anyone hoping the Obama Administration would protect our public lands and public health from fracking pollution got a sobering reality check late last week. Proposed fracking regulations unveiled Friday by new Interior Secretary Sally Jewell would do little to safeguard our air, water or wildlife. Fossil fuel executives can breathe easy now -- even if the rest of us choke on air pollution. Among the biggest flaws in the BLM's planned regulations: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Death metal: tin mining in Indonesia | Environment Suge doesn't have a mobile phone, so he uses a friend's to tell us the news: he doesn't want any visitors and he won't talk. His boss has told him not to say anything. They're neighbours and the mine's just up the road and he needs this job – the job he hopes to go back to when he gets better, inshallah – because mining is good money. We leave at dawn. At the bottom of the sandy dunes sit wide turquoise craters, looked over by gritty hills where haphazard tents made from tarpaulins and thatch serve as shelters for the men descending into the hollowed-out pools with pickaxes and buckets. The tin that 44-year-old Suge has mined over the past 12 years on Bangka island – a granite outcrop just east of Sumatra in Indonesia – has been in heavy demand for the past few centuries. There is a chain here: Bangka and Belitung produce 90% of Indonesia's tin, and Indonesia is the world's second-largest exporter of the metal. Suge's father tells us that his son's accident was unavoidable. "Hey!