Category: Blog entry

  • Are Carbon Taxes Another False Solution?

    - by Mike Ewall, Ener­gy Jus­tice Network Octo­ber 2014 Car­bon tax­es are emerg­ing as a major top-down cli­mate solu­tion envi­ros would like to see come out of Con­gress.  Plen­ty of “tax car­bon” signs were present in the 400,000-strong People’s Cli­mate March in New York City last month.  Even U.N. Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Ban Ki-moon is urg­ing nations to adopt…

  • Pennsylvania College Students Tell Wolf: No New Pipelines, Green Jobs Now

    On Mon­day, stu­dents from 19 Penn­syl­va­nia col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties deliv­ered a state­ment to Gov­er­nor Tom Wolf’s Capi­tol office demand­ing no new nat­ur­al gas pipelines and imme­di­ate invest­ment in green jobs. The stu­dents are attend­ing Penn­syl­va­nia Stu­dent Pow­er Spring Break near Har­ris­burg, an alter­na­tive spring break pro­gram for stu­dents work­ing on social, eco­nom­ic, and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice issues…

  • Environmental Justice and Your Block

    Environmental Justice and Your Block

    We want­ed to cre­ate a visu­al­iza­tion that shows how income varies by block to facil­i­tate com­mu­ni­ty envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice orga­niz­ing. In some neigh­bor­hoods there are major dif­fer­ences between blocks, and these dif­fer­ences are used by cor­po­ra­tions to decide what blocks to tar­get with tox­ic facilities. So we recent­ly fin­ished a high­ly exper­i­men­tal lay­er that esti­mates medi­an…

  • Incinerator Victory in Muncy, Pennsylvania!

    Incinerator Victory in Muncy, Pennsylvania!

    Just in time for the hol­i­days, res­i­dents of the rur­al town of Muncy, PA just had their local bor­ough coun­cil pass into law a set-back dis­tance ordi­nance we wrote. It pro­hibits any new facil­i­ties requir­ing a state air pol­lu­tion or waste per­mit from locat­ing with­in 900 feet of an occu­pied dwelling, school, park, or playground. This effec­tive­ly…

  • Where U.S. Energy Comes From:

    Want to know where U.S. ener­gy cur­rent­ly comes from? Check out this new series of charts we just updat­ed, based on data through August 2016, with pro­jec­tions for all of 2016. Find all of them here: www.energyjusticenetwork.org/energysources Here are some of the highlights: See more at www.energyjusticenetwork.org/energysources

  • Maryland, Maryland, Quite Contrary-land

    Since 2011, Mary­land has been noto­ri­ous for being the only state to clas­si­fy trash as equiv­a­lent to wind pow­er in a renew­able ener­gy man­date. Over half of the “renew­able” ener­gy used to meet the man­date still comes from smoke­stacks at paper mills, land­fills, trash, and bio­mass incin­er­a­tors in 12 states span­ning New Jer­sey to Wis­con­sin to Tennessee.…

  • Spatial Justice Tests

    - by Aaron Krei­der, Ener­gy Jus­tice Network  One of the main goals of Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work’s Jus­tice Map project is to demon­strate the role that income and race play in the sit­ing of dirty facil­i­ties. You can use Jus­tice Map (by click­ing on Advanced Mode) to ana­lyze the race and income of peo­ple who live with­in, say,…

  • Waste Done Right

    - by Ruth Tyson, Ener­gy Jus­tice Network In 2012, Amer­i­cans dis­posed of 251 mil­lion tons of trash, accord­ing to the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA). The Sto­ry of Stuff Project neat­ly lays out the way mate­ri­als move through our econ­o­my from extrac­tion to pro­duc­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion, con­sump­tion, and dis­pos­al. Most con­sumers don’t think beyond the “con­sump­tion”…

  • Families Get $4 Million For Fracking Water Contamination

    In March, a fed­er­al jury award­ed a total of $4.2 mil­lion to two fam­i­lies from Dimock, Penn­syl­va­nia whose drink­ing water wells have been con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by Cabot Oil and Gas when drilling for nat­ur­al gas. “It’s been a bat­tle,” said plain­tiff Scott Ely, co-plain­tiff with Ray Hubert, in a law­suit against Cabot filed in 2009. “You’re up…

  • Constitution Pipeline Permit Denied

    - April 22, 2016, Ener­gy Jus­tice Network On April 22, the New York Depart­ment of Con­ser­va­tion refused to issue a water qual­i­ty per­mit for the Con­sti­tu­tion Pipeline, a 124 mile pipeline that would’ve car­ried nat­ur­al gas from the Mar­cel­lus shale in Penn­syl­va­nia to New York State.   Accom­pa­nied by heav­i­ly armed U.S. Mar­shals wear­ing bul­let­proof vests, a Con­sti­tu­tion Pipeline…