Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Southern California Gas Company was responsible for a recent chemical spill in the Rancho Park area of West Los Angeles that caused a strong gas-like odor to blanket surrounding neighborhoods. The Los Angeles City Council directed various agencies to investigate, with area residents and two councilmen voicing heavy criticism of SoCal Gas’s handling of post-spill communications.
California extended its Cap and Trade system until 2030, a symbolic move that actually allows grave concessions to the oil industry, ties the hands of local agencies ability to regulate greenhouse gases, and threatens both the state’s climate goals and the health of communities, ecosystems and the planet. RL Miller unveils the ugly political process where the Jerry Brown had the oil industry write the bill and forced the rest to go along.
The California Environmental Quality Act, protector of resources and communities through consideration of implications of proposed projects, is under attack. Representatives from industry and real estate development, and sometimes even Governor Jerry Brown, seek ways to weaken it, or to exempt their pet projects. While the law is far from perfect, it remains the gold standard of environmental protection in the US.
A surge in rail transport has accounted for hundreds of thousands of gallons of spilled crude oil, more than the previous four decades combined. Ross Hammond from ForestEthics outlines five immediate actions for President Obama on train safety.
In light of the People’s Climate Mobilization in New York and worldwide, Sabina Virgo writes on the need to build a movement using the examples of fights for civil rights, feminism and peace, based on the principle that corporate-centered business as usual must end, bringing about a just transition to a sustainable economic model that creates jobs and prosperity for all while protecting our fragile ecological balance.
Is it possible for urban planners to make places more attractive and healthy, without then making them more expensive? Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow investigates recent research into the ongoing debate about environmental gentrification.
The Wall Street Journal sings the praises of SASOL’s move to industrialize the Lousiana Bayou with fracked natural gas. But the proposed project by the apartheid-supporting state oil company from South Africa, using Nazi technology, may spell the end for a 224-year-old community founded by freed slaves.