Do you like the regulations that protect our air and water? Let Congress know you do - they are asking.
by Katharine Pelzer, Fair Climate Project Intern, NWF
As you may have noticed, lawmakers in Washington have been debating EPA's authority to use the Clean Air Act to limit harmful emissions such as greenhouse gases which cause global warming.
Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Representative Fred Upton's Dirty Air Act (H.R. 910). The passage of the bill represents what many call the largest assault on public health, clean air, and clean water in years.
This is unacceptable.
Public health groups and medical professionals are up in arms since prevention of the EPA from exercising these common sense safeguards will lead to tens of millions more hospital visits and cases of asthma. In a related effort, Physicians for Social Responsibility is calling communities to sign on to a letter "to stand up to protect children, people with chronic health conditions and communities bearing too much of the burden of carbon monoxide pollution, which causes causes birth defects, infant deaths, strokes and heart attacks, to call for the EPA to lower the CO standards released."
Low-income and minority communities will bear the brunt of the consequences if Congress curbs U.S. EPA's Clean Air Act regulations.
We all must speak up and tell our Senators to reject attempts to put communities in harm's way. We must demand that our congressional representatives let the EPA do it's job: to protect our communities from polluters and help ensure clean air and water for future generations.
|Highway to Hell and the Roads Along the Way (Part 2 of 2) |
By Nellis Kennedy-Howard, Fair Climate network member and National Campaign Associate for Honor the Earth, an organization to promote energy justice in Native America way of life.
For those who do not live close enough to the tar sands to see the immediate impacts, the tar sands still have an effect on you. How? The tar sands present a major source of pollution that will only further exacerbate global warming. Being such an 'unconventional' and 'unique' oil (aka: dirty oil), the tar sands emit three to five times more greenhouse gases than conventional oil. A recent study by the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center revealed that the tar sands project has higher emissions than 97 nations combined.
This is not a sustainable project and the Canadian government is merely turning a blind eye to the consequences its actions. Sadly, the US is the largest consumer of the tar sands oil as 60% of tar sands oil is sent to the US.
The U.S. Department of State is currently going through the permitting process for the latest and largest tar sands pipeline. TransCanada's proposed Keystone XL pipeline would move up to 900,000 barrels of tar sands oil daily from Alberta, Canada to refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast, traversing 2,000 miles through rivers, farmland and forests from Montana to Texas. Unless we stop it, this pipeline would effectively open the entire U.S. market and international markets to this environmentally damaging and costly high-carbon fuel.
|A cherished home to many indigenous peoples is turning into Big Oil's toxic playground. |
What has this done to the local First Nations communities in Canada? With all boom & bust situations like this, local communities are hit hard with social ills from the sudden influx of miners and workers inundating the area. The tar sands are no different. Alberta has the highest school dropout and divorce rates in Canada. Sadly, Alberta women suffer the highest level of spousal abuse in Canada. Drug use has also risen exponentially since before the project began. It should come as no surprise that the local First Nations who survive on subsistence living are now experiencing overwhelming rates of rare cancers and various illnesses.
The social ills, cultural consequences and environmental impacts are having an irreparable effect on the land and the indigenous way of life. The tar sands project is a living curse that grows larger and larger every day.
Thi