Fighting for their right to pollute

MSNBC: Tighten smog rules? Industry fights proposal
As the US government prepares to introduce new tougher limits on smog emissions, various industries are actively fighting back.  As usual, they argue that making the required changes will cost money and hurt the economy.  Health experts point out that thousands of lives would be spared and millions of dollars saved on health care and missed days of productivity.  If it was terrorists killing thousands of Americans each year instead of smog, you can bet the problem would be taken slightly more seriously.

Black rivers and flattened mountains

Toronto Star: Coal mining ravages Appalachian mountains
I often read dreary stories about environmental disaster, but this one made an unusual impact. The scale of destruction nearly incomprehensible, with entire mountains razed, floodwaters black with coal debris, and houses rendered uninhabitable. Just as shocking are the stories of those who are being attacked, threated, and intimidated for simply trying to protect their own homes.

The brake lines on her truck were cut. Her dog was shot and left at her 17-year-old son Jessie’s school bus stop. Last October, 200 bullets coming from the mountainside splattered around her in her yard, she says. She gardens now in a bullet-proof vest.

No winners in water fight

MSNBC: Feds say Southern water-sharing talks failed
A decades-long battle between Alabama, Georgia and Florida over water resources has come to a head as all three states suffer through the worst drought in their collective history.  Negotiations have failed, and the US federal government is now going to impose a solution. 

More money into cleaner energy

CNN: Pressure, private cash driving clean energy
High conventional energy prices are bringing more and more investment into alternative energies like wind, solar, geothermal, and even nuclear power, and the energy research group CERA predicts that in the coming years these will move from the fringe to the mainstream.