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Category: Blog Post

  • JusticeMap — Save an Image

    JusticeMap.org (beta), our web­site and set of race and income open map lay­ers that lets you demon­strate eco­nom­ic and racial injus­tice, now lets you export the map to an image. This allows you to post it on your web­site, add it to your pub­li­ca­tion, share it on Face­book, Twit­ter, email, etc. First­ly you cus­tomize the map…

  • Shale Gas: Not the Wise Choice for Pennsylvania

    I was asked to sub­mit this piece by the North­east Penn­syl­va­nia Ener­gy Jour­nal, a pro-frack­ing mag­a­zine fund­ed entire­ly by gas indus­try ads that’s insert­ed in our local news­pa­pers. The piece will be print­ed with an indus­try rep­re­sen­ta­tive’s counter argu­ment that shale gas is good for Penn­syl­va­nia and the climate. Pow­er Shift Shale­field Tour by Alex Lotor­to,…

  • DC’s Waste and Environmental Racism

    Few in our nation’s capi­tol city think twice when they throw stuff “away” — nor do they think about who lives where “away” is. Fit­ting a nation­al trend of envi­ron­men­tal racism, it should be no sur­prise that DC’s waste has long impact­ed com­mu­ni­ties of col­or in one of the most seg­re­gat­ed met­ro­pol­i­tan areas in the coun­try.…

  • Race, Class and the proposed Cove Point, Maryland — LNG Terminal

    While being a very bad idea, the pro­posed LNG ter­mi­nal at Cove Point Mary­land does not appear to be a blan­tant case of race or class based dis­crim­i­na­tion in its location. I use JusticeMap.org (beta) to ana­lyze the pro­posed loca­tion.  You can see that the income for the imme­di­ate cen­sus tract is actu­al­ly high­er than the more dis­tant ones,…

  • Obama’s New Year’s Resolution? More Fracking.

    The 2014 US Cli­mate Action Report to the Unit­ed Nations is out. The offi­cial line from the White House is cel­e­brat­ing how the US is going to meet the 2009 Copen­hagen green­house gas emis­sions com­mit­ment. How­ev­er, we read the fine print and here is Barack Oba­ma’s frack­ing plan for elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion in 2020: “Nat­ur­al gas-fired plants…

  • Mapping Race and Income — JusticeMap.org (BETA)

    JusticeMap.org (BETA) is an excit­ing new ini­tia­tive to map race and income at a very high lev­el of res­o­lu­tion for the entire Unit­ed States. We’re using data from the 2010 Cen­sus (race) and Amer­i­can Com­mu­ni­ty Sur­vey (income) and some soft­ware (TileMill) to cre­ate a series of map lay­ers. The project is sup­port­ed by the Sun­light Foundation. https://www.justicemap.org/…

  • One Woman’s Fight to Clean Up Nuclear Waste

    Waste Land: One Town’s Atom­ic Lega­cy: A $500 Mil­lion CleanupQuar­ter-Cen­tu­ry Cru­sade to Force Gov­ern­ment Cleanup of Radioac­tive Contamination By John R. Emsh­willerNov. 21, 2013 11:22 p.m. ET APOLLO, Pa.—For Pat­ty Ameno, it is a Kodak moment from child­hood that stirs many mem­o­ries. She is 8 years old, dressed up for East­er in her fam­i­ly home­’s yard,…

  • More Haze in Theodore National Park

    Bakken boom linked to haze at Theodore Roosevelt park Post­ed on 11/08/2013 by Greenwire By Phil Taylor As new oil wells crop up by the thou­sands in the min­er­al-rich Bakken play in north­west North Dako­ta, near­by Theodore Roo­sevelt Nation­al Park has expe­ri­enced spikes in haze-caus­ing pol­lu­tion, accord­ing to a new study. While the boom has cre­at­ed wealth for the…

  • Hydropower: Friend or Foe?

    By Kip Hill August 16th, 2013 Spokesman review Mil­lions of homes Adding ener­gy pro­duc­tion by retro­fitting the largest 100 dams in the coun­try could boost the nation’s pro­duc­tion enough to pow­er 3.2 mil­lion more homes, the Depart­ment of Ener­gy said in a study. Rep. Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers says hydropow­er is back, and Con­gress seems to…

  • Biomass Incinerator Fined for Pollution

    June 4, 2013. Source: Thomas Con­tent, The Jour­nal Sentinel The oper­a­tor of a bio­mass pow­er plant on the Mis­sis­sip­pi Riv­er in Cassville will pay $150,000 to set­tle air pol­lu­tion vio­la­tions at the plant in recent years. The fine was announced by state Attor­ney Gen­er­al J.B. Van Hollen after a stip­u­la­tion to set­tle air pol­lu­tion vio­la­tions by…