Back in 1994, 240 coal miners in Hirwaun, Wales bought the Tower Colliery where they were employed. The UK government was de-nationalizing the coal mines and the pit was scheduled to close. The miners took charge of their own livelihood, used their severence-layoff pay and borrowed money, to buy the coal mine. “In its first […]
On Monday February 4th, Iâll be doing the Public Health Reportsâ monthly webcast, discussing the recent article Celeste Monforton and I wrote entitled Berylliumâs âPublic Relations Problemâ: Protecting Workers When There is No Safe Exposure Level. Hereâs some background: In a 1947 report, entitled Public Relations Problems in Connection with Occupational Diseases in the Beryllium […]
Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC), a coal industry âastroturfâ organization, is sponsoring the Republican presidential debate tonight and Democratic debate tomorrow night, both in California and hosted by CNN. Think Progress has noticed that ABEC has sponsored three previous debates on CNN, and, in each one, there have been no questions about global warming. […]
Catch Devra Davis on BookTV this weekend, talking about her terrific book The Secret History of the War on Cancer. More details, including broadcast times, are here.
On January 20th, Britainâs Sunday Times newspaper published the results of six months’ worth of interviews with employees from the building site of Beijingâs Olympic stadium: CHINA has systematically covered up the accidental deaths of at least 10 workers, and perhaps many more, in a rush to construct the futuristic âbirdâs nestâ stadium in Beijing […]
In San Francisco, large grocery stores are no longer allowed to give out the disposable, non-biodegradable plastic bags that have formed a giant patch of plastic (twice the size of Texas) in the Pacific Ocean and caused a host of other problems. The Whole Foods supermarket chain will halt plastic-bag distribution on Earth Day this […]
In his last state of the union address, President Bush glossed over the seriousness of some of the most pressing problems facing our country, and suggested they could be solved with something thatâs been in short supply during his tenure. âGlobal climate changeâ got one brief mention, as something that the nation is committed to confronting with cleaner […]
Earlier this month, I wrote in Restoring FOIA about recently passed amendments to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) which were signed into law by President Bush on Dec. 31, 2007. Supporters of the OPEN Government Act, including the Society for Environmental Journalists (SEJ), are hoping that these new FOIA requirements will bring easier and speedier access […]
UPDATED BELOW Annys Shin of the Washington Post has reported that Dr. Gail Charnley, a well-known corporate product defense expert, is the White Houseâs leading candidate for the chairmanship of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Weâve written extensively here about this beleaguered agency. Finally, after the nation watched helplessly at the recall of millions of […]
The Chemical Safety Board (CSB) released new information concerning the massive explosion on December 19 at the T2 Laboratories plant in Jacksonville, Florida. The disaster killed four men out of the nine total who were working at the time. In their announcement, the CSB investigators indicated that 33 people—more than double the number originally reported—suffered lacerations, […]